Post by: Dio on January 16, 2014, 05:39:51 AM
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Police States use oppression to keep their citizens in line, and allow
their leaders great power over military decisions. But oppression of
this type also decreases economic efficiency.
and secondly the help text for power is:
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Leaders seeking Power build strong, well-paid military forces to.
enforce their will. However, economic and industrial infrastructure may
suffer from bloated "defense" budgets.
Do you think that it is an appropriate match to have -Economy social effects for the Power and Police State social models based upon their help texts?
Post by: Geo on January 16, 2014, 11:36:00 AM
Do you think that it is an appropriate match to have -Economy social effects for the Power and Police State social models based upon their help texts?
To me it looks the -2 effic replaced the negative economy modifier in Police State. Might be interesting to see how this plays out, but probably AI Morgan would never follow PS again then.
Negative econ for Power sounds counter intuitive when military sales are about the top business here in our economy.
Post by: gwillybj on January 18, 2014, 04:02:54 PM
I'd rather replace the line with something else from modern society, though.
Post by: Dio on January 18, 2014, 06:59:54 PM
On a another note, it has bothered me that their is no way with any of the original seven factions to get -5 RESEARCH or -3 GROWTH in the Social Engineering table.
Post by: Yitzi on January 24, 2014, 06:05:30 AM
First, the help for Police state is: (important word(s) are in bold font)QuotePolice States use oppression to keep their citizens in line, and allow
their leaders great power over military decisions. But oppression of
this type also decreases economic efficiency.
That could easily refer to EFFIC rating; EFFIC affects energy (which is economy), so it's logical to call it "economic efficiency", perhaps more logical than using "economic efficiency" for ECONOMY. The fact that Police State is obviously based on Despotism from Civ also supports the "EFFIC penalty was original" theory.
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Leaders seeking Power build strong, well-paid military forces to.
enforce their will. However, economic and industrial infrastructure may
suffer from bloated "defense" budgets.
That refers to energy-boosting facilities, which take longer to build with an INDUSTRY penalty. The key word here is "infrastructure", which refers to facilities.
So those help texts do not support a -EFFIC change, though thematically having -EFFIC for Police State would not be out of place.
Post by: Kirov on January 24, 2014, 07:45:59 PM
What I miss a lot from SE options is that there is no feature in PROBE to make your probe actions cheaper - apart from a probe morale boost, positive PROBE is largely passive. Is there any way to change it?
And+2 and +3 MORALE, as weak as it is already (I consider MORALE to be the least important SE) give only +1 and +2 Morale respectively, plus additional 1 on defence... What gives? Even the highest MORALE is no match for +2 ECON or +1 INDUSTRY. I can't imagine how someone thought that the SE settings and choices are even remotely balanced.
Post by: Geo on January 24, 2014, 10:10:50 PM
Post by: Yitzi on January 26, 2014, 04:26:34 AM
I agree with Yitzi on that 'economic efficiency' line. I've always read it the same way he says.
What I miss a lot from SE options is that there is no feature in PROBE to make your probe actions cheaper - apart from a probe morale boost, positive PROBE is largely passive. Is there any way to change it?
Not without .exe modding.
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And+2 and +3 MORALE, as weak as it is already (I consider MORALE to be the least important SE) give only +1 and +2 Morale respectively, plus additional 1 on defence... What gives? Even the highest MORALE is no match for +2 ECON or +1 INDUSTRY. I can't imagine how someone thought that the SE settings and choices are even remotely balanced.
Firstly, having all your units be elite (doable with +3 MORALE in conjunction with a command center and monolith, or +4 with just a command center) is quite an advantage, since it lets you use cheap infantry as though they were rovers.
Secondly, what makes you think they're considered equal? You take a lot of penalties for +2 ECON, and other than Free Market, boosts to ECON and INDUSTRY are only +1 where most boosts are +2. The imbalance is due more to (1) PLANET penalties being not as big a deal because of how the ecodamage formula works, (2) -2 MORALE not being such a big deal because creches' effect on morale penalties is too strong, and (3) people usually playing on more builder-friendly maps. Plus some other things, such as POLICE being too weak...
Instant Elite units is in my opinion not something to sneeze at when a native stack of doom heads your way. It saves minerals to replace lost units, or seen the other way, gives extra mineral or energy costs to opponents to replace those units they lost against your elite ones.
I think the +1 movement is a more important bonus, both because it always applies and because it translates into usually being able to attack first.
Post by: Nexii on February 14, 2014, 07:41:31 PM
PROBE was probably weaker than intended judging by Fundamentalisms +/-
Something like +/- to PROBE team construction costs might have worked too, or modified energy cost on actions. The best fix IMO is to just give Fundamentalism +2 MORALE instead of +1 MORALE
Similarly Power was a bit weak, though I wouldn't underestimate ++SUPPORT that it gives. Supporting extra units for free will often counteract the --IND until Clean reactors (which are a bit broken IMO). I think Power is a bit underestimated in general though. Modding Power to just -1 IND makes it really strong...so I'm not too sure.
Police State at -2 ECON might work, though you would have to probably make Yang immune to its downside. Thing is late game -2/-3 ECON isn't a huge penalty. And +2 POLICE becomes really good with the drone fixes. Don't underestimate +POLICE especially as you expand and conquer. -2 EFF is probably required to keep it more balanced. Really I always felt +ECON was a screwy SE with its odd breakpoints. Something like +/- to total Energy production might have been more interesting than hard square modifiers. But as Yitzi said this isn't easy to modify...so it's best to make due.
Also I agree with Yitzi that MORALE is a really important and underrated modifier. +1 movement lets you position to almost always strike first, be it by land, air or sea. The game is very attacker favored, therefore the attacker rarely takes many losses. Even if you unit cost mod to make defense a bit more viable, the attacker will still be favored (as only a bad player would suicide their units into a death trap). Now the AI doesn't war all that well so this might not be apparent. You can run your builder SE and pick off the un-coordinated AI attacks with ease. But if you play some Human vs Human games, you'll see how important first strike and positioning are.
With Yitzi's fixes I'd rank PLANET and PROBE as currently the least important SEs by quite a big margin. It'd be nice to somehow make them a bit more relevant but it's not too bad given how the SEs are mostly balanced around this.
- 1/-2 ECON might make more sense for Power than Police State, as it thematically opposes Wealth SE. But Wealth also gives +IND so I think it's ok. IND and ECON are pretty similar in that they both favor builder style play over momentum. Personally I think the -EFF fits Police State as there would be a lot of corruption.
Post by: Yitzi on February 15, 2014, 11:54:47 PM
Agree and the devs obviously did know that some SEs had stronger benefits than others. Mind you they might have overestimated some SE settings like Fundamentalist, Power.
I think that it's less "overestimated" and more "expected people to play on maps that are more aggression-friendly than the ones currently often used in multiplayer."
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PROBE was probably weaker than intended judging by Fundamentalisms +/-
No, I think it's more that RESEARCH was stronger than intended, and MORALE...actually, that's probably about right, as it can be very powerful if used to its potential.
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Something like +/- to PROBE team construction costs might have worked too, or modified energy cost on actions.
Or perhaps an energy cost applied to infiltrating and stealing tech?
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Similarly Power was a bit weak, though I wouldn't underestimate ++SUPPORT that it gives. Supporting extra units for free will often counteract the --IND until Clean reactors (which are a bit broken IMO).
I think it's more that it makes it easier to get Elite...and when your infantry are equivalent to your opponent's rovers, that's far more than worth a +20% cost (if, of course, most of your production is spent on military).
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Police State at -2 ECON might work, though you would have to probably make Yang immune to its downside.
Not really, as he'd just have to wait until he's not relying on the base square for energy. Even -4 ECON has no penalty beyond the base square.
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Really I always felt +ECON was a screwy SE with its odd breakpoints.
Not as odd as you might think; with the right playstyle (which, not coincidentally, is probably the one where Market's and Wealth's penalties hurt the least), commerce bonuses are EXTREMELY powerful. (I'm talking about "Morgan can be a better techer than Zak" powerful here.)
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Something like +/- to total Energy production might have been more interesting than hard square modifiers. But as Yitzi said this isn't easy to modify...so it's best to make due.
It probably could be done if you describe what you want, it's just not such a high priority.
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With Yitzi's fixes I'd rank PLANET and PROBE as currently the least important SEs by quite a big margin. It'd be nice to somehow make them a bit more relevant but it's not too bad given how the SEs are mostly balanced around this.
Actually, PLANET can be made very important, depending on how you mod the ecodamage formula. (Cut clean minerals and increase divisors, and it becomes quite significant.) PROBE could use some boosting, probably by making more things cost credits (and thus be modified by the target's PROBE rating.)
Post by: Nexii on February 25, 2014, 05:48:26 PM
I think if feasible it would be good to add a Energy cost to stealing tech. Maybe tie it to your current research cost in lab points? You could add a cost to infiltrating too, maybe tied to faction population. Although doesn't infiltrate last forever? I always thought it should wear off after some time, maybe 20 turns. I could be wrong on this one.
Another possibility to boost PROBE would be to make it impossible to do all probe actions and not just subversion against a player running +3 PROBE SE. That would make it very tempting. Especially if you couldn't be infiltrated at +3 PROBE SE...a lot of wars come down to knowing when to go all-in. Believers would have a needed boost with just Fund or TC, most other factions could run both late-game.
As for the Yang thing (on topic!) I'll have to test. I thought that -ECON was a modifier to the base's energy and not to the base square (if in excess of the default 1 energy). Regardless, I still say that -4 ECON is crippling till later in the game, because that's -2 energy per base. A size 3 base with Recycle tanks and 3 forests is only 5 energy and this puts you all the way down to just 3. Or equivalent to -40% research rate - worse than Fundamentalism not even considering the lost Energy to rush with. It just seems counter-intuitive that Yang wouldn't want to run Police State when he gets it. Although to play devil's advocate, Yang is really strong with the Drone fixes. PS is very powerful now also. I think if you were to give PS -2 ECON instead of -2 EFFIC, then -2 ECON would need to be a bigger penalty in the later game. Perhaps a commerce penalty?
Post by: Yitzi on February 25, 2014, 07:43:44 PM
Yea I'll have to play around with some Planet modifiers. The thing is I find FM already has big downsides on Transcend, with Drone fixes in. No Police sentinel really stings.
Hey, Transcend is supposed to be hard. But if you do want to make Planet more important, what you want to do is increase mineral divisor and total divisor (so that you can get some decent minerals without too much ecodamage if you have good PLANET) and decrease or remove the clean minerals (as those are not affected by PLANET rating.) Oh, and increase the threshold for max ecodamage at the nearest base to still be able to capture worms, but that won't be possible until the next version of my patch.
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A lot more than the P-drones as you'd only really run FM in a peace scenario anyways. Like you said Morgan and +Commerce are really good with higher ECON. Didn't mean at all that ECON is worthless past +2. It's really powerful if you can get allies and have the Global Trade Pact going. But on the flip side, if you don't have this energy boost then it's really hard to control Drones.
Actually, even without commerce, a decent-sized base should be able to use the bonus energy to compensate for the lack of police. Normally you'd only be getting 2 points of drone control (1 unit with non-lethal methods), so that's 4 psych, and with a hologram theater that comes out to 2-3 energy (or 2 with more psych-boosting facilities).
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I think if feasible it would be good to add a Energy cost to stealing tech. Maybe tie it to your current research cost in lab points?
I considered that, but it just doesn't really seem like it makes sense. I think a better approach is to tie it to the target's energy (just like subversion) and the target base's distance from HQ (increasing with higher distance from HQ, and being free at the HQ.) That way, if you want to steal tech or infiltrate you have to decide whether to go after a riskier central base, or a more expensive fringe base.
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You could add a cost to infiltrating too, maybe tied to faction population. Although doesn't infiltrate last forever? I always thought it should wear off after some time, maybe 20 turns. I could be wrong on this one.
It does last forever. Making it wear off after some time could be tricky, because it would need to store when it happened, but I like the idea. The duration could then be modified by PROBE rating. The question is then what to do with the Empath Guild (as if it's the only way to get permanent infiltration it'd be way too powerful); I think the best approach is for it to create an infiltration with double duration when it's build, and also double the duration of probe-team-created infiltrations.
If infiltration is temporary, though, I don't think it should have a cost. Still, I can add both features and people can use whatever they want. (It's not going to be one of the next few, though; the next version is waiting for the "ecodamage to prevent worm capture" variable and for me to finish with "enhanced information"; after that is making base-to-base crawling viable and allowing population-based caps on crawler use, and then making some nifty options involving fungus and the Voice of Planet.)
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Another possibility to boost PROBE would be to make it impossible to do all probe actions and not just subversion against a player running +3 PROBE SE. That would make it very tempting.
It would also be overpowered and have a negative effect on the game, I think. However, if +3 PROBE reduced the duration of infiltration to
Especially if you couldn't be infiltrated at +3 PROBE SE...a lot of wars come down to knowing when to go all-in. Believers would have a needed boost with just Fund or TC, most other factions could run both late-game.
As for the Yang thing (on topic!) I'll have to test. I thought that -ECON was a modifier to the base's energy and not to the base square (if in excess of the default 1 energy). Regardless, I still say that -4 ECON is crippling till later in the game, because that's -2 energy per base. A size 3 base with Recycle tanks and 3 forests is only 5 energy and this puts you all the way down to just 3. Or equivalent to -40% research rate - worse than Fundamentalism not even considering the lost Energy to rush with. It just seems counter-intuitive that Yang wouldn't want to run Police State when he gets it. Although to play devil's advocate, Yang is really strong with the Drone fixes. PS is very powerful now also. I think if you were to give PS -2 ECON instead of -2 EFFIC, then -2 ECON would need to be a bigger penalty in the later game. Perhaps a commerce penalty?
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Post by: Nexii on February 26, 2014, 04:31:40 PM
Also Dio I tested and at -3 (or lower) ECON, the -2 energy only affects the base square and cannot go below 0 (in the case of a new base with no recycle tanks or other bonus). So I'm not sure the whole negative energy theory is the reason for no -ECON SEs. My theory is that it made Police State just too punishing to run early game for Yang. Though you can argue PS+Planned has the same flaw at -4 EFFIC for others. I'm of the opinion that certain combinations shouldn't be so crippling (otherwise the game would restrict). The other thing is that -2 ECON is insignificant past early game. The same can be argued of SUP I guess but Clean has a cost. If -ECON had Commerce penalty (in the way that +ECON gives Commerce bonus) then I think you could balance the -ECON SE better between early/late game.
Thematically I think the -2 ECON would fit better with Planned than -2 EFF. Thoughts anyone?
Post by: Yitzi on February 26, 2014, 04:57:24 PM
Complete immunity at +3 PROBE might be pretty overpowered I'll admit. But HSA does the same, maybe something like non-AE probes only.
Well, obviously it wouldn't be better than HSA...but while one faction being able to be probe-immune isn't too problematic (as if one faction is weak against another it's not such a big deal because there are a lot of other factions), for every faction to be able to achieve that is too much.
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That or tighten up the odds curve. Right now it doesn't feel like there's much difference between - and + PROBE SE.
Steal costs that change with PROBE, and infiltration duration being highly affected by PROBE (say, 40 turns at -2 target's PROBE, 30 at -1, 20 at 0, 15 at +1, 10 at +2, 5 at +3) should make it more noticeable. I also think removing the "boosts probe team morale" feature of some techs will help, so that that +1/+2/+3 PROBE actually has a noticeable effect.
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The thing about adding steal costs is that it hurts the stealing factions more than techers.
Of course it does; stealing factions have other advantages (Miriam has a powerful army and if she ever does get ahead in research she'll be expensive to steal from, and Roze can steal more cheaply and unless running Knowledge will have auto-elite probe teams with PSA.) It actually helps techers, as they can more easily keep their lead, but they have their own weaknesses (Zak's got drones and is fairly cheap to steal tech or bases from, and Aki and Morgan have population weaknesses, including lacking easy pop booms.)
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If steal costs were very low at +2/+3 PROBE this might be okay too.
That's the nice thing about making it scale with distance from HQ; it means that cost and risk have a trade-off.
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Also Dio I tested and at -3 (or lower) ECON, the -2 energy only affects the base square and cannot go below 0 (in the case of a new base with no recycle tanks or other bonus). So I'm not sure the whole negative energy theory is the reason for no -ECON SEs.
Of course it isn't; the reason is that there really wasn't something to match it well. (Police State was probably always intended to be -EFFIC; it's clearly a carry-over from Despotism in the early Civ games, which was effectively -EFFIC, +SUPPORT, and resource caps.)
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The same can be argued of SUP I guess but Clean has a cost.
Indeed it does, and a fairly significant one; throwaway units will be better used as non-Clean. More of a concern is the fact that unit costs and resource income increase as the game progresses whereas support cost does not; that's why my next patch includes scaling support costs.
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If -ECON had Commerce penalty (in the way that +ECON gives Commerce bonus) then I think you could balance the -ECON SE better between early/late game.
It's an idea; when I start taking requests for mods feel free to request that.
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Thematically I think the -2 ECON would fit better with Planned than -2 EFF. Thoughts anyone?
Maybe not. EFFIC affects bases far from your HQ more, and is more important with a larger empire (due to bureaucracy drones), so having Planned be fairly effective with a small empire but devastating with a large one makes a lot of thematic sense. (Planned economies tend to work well with small groups and poorly with larger groups.)
Post by: Geo on February 26, 2014, 05:44:04 PM
Complete immunity at +3 PROBE might be pretty overpowered I'll admit. But HSA does the same, maybe something like non-AE probes only.
To chip in here, it would render trying to build the HSA moot in the semi-short run. That's where the SP's are for; an incentive to strife for.
Post by: Nexii on February 26, 2014, 10:11:43 PM
I think that mostly -ECON wasn't put on any SEs as a penalty because it becomes insignificant later in the game. They probably didn't want a go-to SE. Though it sometimes feels otherwise with techs like Cloning Vats 8). For the same reason I'd rank Yang well above other factions with the drone fixes. PS/Planned for Yang is just as good for growth as options like Demo/Planned or Demo/FM on others, because of the drone control and free support. The only hard part is no easy pop booms but you can usually ride the momentum wave to victory. Wealth just goes in too well completely negating -2 ECON. It's hard to argue that -1 ECON wasn't well thought out.
Post by: Yitzi on February 27, 2014, 12:29:49 AM
True, though note only Miriam and Roze can get +3 PROBE until Thought Control.
No, only Miriam and Roze can get a faction-wide +3 PROBE until Thought Control. Anyone can get it on a base-by-base basis once they get PSA.
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Still I do agree that +PROBE needs to be more offensive in nature. +PLANET and +MORALE work more offensively.
Actually, PLANET's effect on ecodamage is more defensive in nature, and the ability to capture worms is really strongest for hybrid style players. MORALE is also of both offensive and defensive use, though it's better for offensive styles.
As for making PROBE more offensive in nature, it makes more thematic sense, based on where it comes from, for it to give mainly defensive bonuses.
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I think that mostly -ECON wasn't put on any SEs as a penalty because it becomes insignificant later in the game. They probably didn't want a go-to SE. Though it sometimes feels otherwise with techs like Cloning Vats 8).
The Cloning Vats do lend themselves well to certain social engineering choices...but that's only one faction.
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For the same reason I'd rank Yang well above other factions with the drone fixes. PS/Planned for Yang is just as good for growth as options like Demo/Planned or Demo/FM on others, because of the drone control and free support. The only hard part is no easy pop booms
Also poor energy; not only can Yang not make use of FM, but he's also almost always got +0 EFFIC, which does affect energy production in a large empire substantially.
Also, keep in mind that Yang is stronger at higher difficulty; a Librarian vs. Librarian vs. Librarian etc. game might turn out very different than a Transcend vs. Transcend vs. Transcend etc. game. The drone fixes were based on the assumption that "standard" play should be Librarian difficulty, and Transcend should be for people who want a real challenge or are really good.
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but you can usually ride the momentum wave to victory.
Yes, Yang is strong with momentum, but that's part of the faction's style. If Yang's your neighbor, you just need to make sure to invest substantially in defense.
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Wealth just goes in too well completely negating -2 ECON. It's hard to argue that -1 ECON wasn't well thought out.
Yang still ends up with energy output ranging from poor to meh. And Wealth means -2 MORALE; that is what was really poorly thought out; if creches halved MORALE penalty rounding the penalty up instead of down, it'd come out to -1 morale or -2 with a command center, meaning that Yang's troops when running Wealth would be too weak to ride the momentum wave that easily.
Post by: Nexii on March 03, 2014, 07:00:43 PM
I'm not sure I understand the part about morale with Creche+CC+Wealth. I wasn't aware that Creches affected the morale of troops produced at that base if that's what you are implying? At -2 MORALE SE and CC it should be Green troops (-1 rank from SE, +1 from CC since halved at -2 MORALE SE). Will have to test tonight
Post by: Geo on March 03, 2014, 07:12:14 PM
Yea, doing some more testing with Yang. He might not be quite as strong as I first thought in a typical game. His big problem is lack of tech. In a player vs player game on Transcend, he can't get both Planned (+Wealth) and Impact (+Rovers) very fast. Once he gets there though, it's downright scary. Not really convinced anyone can stand up to him in a ground war. +3 IND, +3 GROW, +2 SUP, +2 POLICE. -2 MORALE isn't a huge deal as long as the target faction isn't making Elites.
I participated once in a game where AI Yang came to the brink of taking out a human-played Data Angels. Only the (rotor) intervention of initially my faction and later gifted Uni needlejets took the blunt out of the invasion.
Needless to say, the Hive didn't live long thereafter. ;)
Post by: Yitzi on March 03, 2014, 07:29:51 PM
Yea, doing some more testing with Yang. He might not be quite as strong as I first thought in a typical game. His big problem is lack of tech. In a player vs player game on Transcend, he can't get both Planned (+Wealth) and Impact (+Rovers) very fast. Once he gets there though, it's downright scary. Not really convinced anyone can stand up to him in a ground war. +3 IND, +3 GROW, +2 SUP, +2 POLICE. -2 MORALE isn't a huge deal as long as the target faction isn't making Elites.
Firstly, a 2-point morale disadvantage (which, once the effect of creche is rebalanced, will be what it comes out to with CC) is fairly substantial. Secondly, he is definitely hard to stand up to on a ground war...but on the other hand he'll have trouble dealing with the other five players who aren't busy defending against him and can get ahead of him that way.
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I'm not sure I understand the part about morale with Creche+CC+Wealth. I wasn't aware that Creches affected the morale of troops produced at that base if that's what you are implying? At -2 MORALE SE and CC it should be Green troops (-1 rank from SE, +1 from CC since halved at -2 MORALE SE). Will have to test tonight
Creches halve morale penalties for units homed to that base, and the penalty is rounded down. So they turn that -1 into -0.
Post by: Nexii on March 03, 2014, 09:15:37 PM
Post by: Yitzi on March 03, 2014, 10:02:31 PM
Interesting re: Creches. I'm not convinced Creches should halve MORALE penalties (even rounding up), since this isn't mentioned in game as a benefit? Is this some sort of residual bug related to fixing their combat bonuses?
My guess is it's just a last-minute undocumented feature. I don't really think it's such a problem if a creche gives an effective +1 MORALE when you have -3 or worse; it'll still be a substantial disadvantage.
Post by: Nexii on March 05, 2014, 06:33:42 PM
Post by: Yitzi on March 05, 2014, 11:16:40 PM
Yea only Gaia can get down to -3 MORALE anyways. Well pre-Eud.
And they have another way to deal with it, and aren't going to be running market/wealth anyway.
Post by: Geo on March 06, 2014, 07:59:44 PM
Post by: Nexii on March 11, 2014, 09:03:08 PM
I've thought a lot on Fundamentalism lately - by far this is my least used SE. In fact I often thought it was pretty much inferior to Police State in every way. Now to convert to it and still maintain Drone control there are two options: Fund+FM (PSY) or Fund+Planned/Green(PSpheres). Now early-mid game war is all about churning Elites. From Green to Elite is +5 ranks. +4 on land if you have a Monolith handy, which in a typical game you will get one. So Fund is +1, Power +1, CC +2, and Trained mod +1. This means pre-Power only Fund can get Elite without Trained. Also they can get Elite without Trained after Power whereas PS cannot. On the downside as your bases grow the 2 drones controlled by NLM aren't sufficient. PS will make 2 sentries at 20 minerals whereas Fund then has to run PSpheres to control (100 minerals). So that 80 minerals is the difference. Trained is only +10-20 minerals per troop so I see Fund falling off then. Although for Naval/Air the count is +5. So PS can't even get Elite until BioCenters. After BioCenters, AC+BC+Power is the +5 needed. Granted at this point BC cost a lot more than Fund+Power+AC+Trained option. No way a momentum gets CBF over a builder anyways or it's already over. I could also see Fund being decent once you exceed pop:6 in your bases. Sentry control only goes to this size at +2 POLICE whereas PSpheres negate any number of drones. As well Fund gets more Energy than PS due to PS -2 EFFIC. The goal may be to pop-boom like crazy then switch to Fund.
I may try a few games with Fund+FM+Wealth for fun. This means probe only war, but also a lot of money and high morale probes. I think perhaps if Elite probes got a cost reduction on actions, this would help Fund a lot. The base costs are high for a human player. In addition the infiltrate options would put Fund on par with PS for war.
Post by: Yitzi on March 11, 2014, 10:10:25 PM
The main problem you'll find is that -2 ECON on PS and Power would make them scale too powerfully. I think they would both become a sort of 'always go-to SE'. -2 EFFIC / -2 IND sting a lot more. Running negative ECON SE isn't all that harmful since it only hits the base square. Now before you get bigger bases, yes -ECON does really hurt. PS and Power (as they are) I feel are underrated by many players - both are very good. Yes you will fall behind techers running Demo/FM/Wealth(or Knowledge). But you can pressure & expand so well running PS/Green/Power - stealing techs is not that difficult after Doctrine:Flex. You also end up saving a lot of units that would be otherwise killed by native life. The benefit here is double also as you gain energy and mindworms from every kill.
PS actually doesn't help you win battles; I think it's less for tough wars and more for digesting conquests.
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I've thought a lot on Fundamentalism lately - by far this is my least used SE. In fact I often thought it was pretty much inferior to Police State in every way.
It's really for full wartime, where +1 MORALE and near-immunity to subversion is well worth the cost.
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Now to convert to it and still maintain Drone control there are two options: Fund+FM (PSY) or Fund+Planned/Green(PSpheres).
Or Fund+Planned/Green and just devote a substantial portion of your existing energy to psych; sure, your research will suffer, but you were probably planning on stealing and/or extorting other people's research anyway. Or get specialists for psych, though that comes at a cost to productivity.
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Now early-mid game war is all about churning Elites. From Green to Elite is +5 ranks. +4 on land if you have a Monolith handy, which in a typical game you will get one. So Fund is +1, Power +1, CC +2, and Trained mod +1. This means pre-Power only Fund can get Elite without Trained. Also they can get Elite without Trained after Power whereas PS cannot.
Look at your calculations again. Without trained or power, Fund is +1, CC is +2, that's +3 and you need +4. To get Elite, you need three out of the four (Fund/Power/Trained/Monolith), or a bioenhancement center (plus CC and any one of the four), or to play as Spartans or Usurpers (Usurpers need only two out of Power/Trained/Monolith, or Fund/Power, or a CC+bioenhancement center, and Spartans need only Power, or two out of Fund/Trained/Monolith, or CC+bioenhancement.)
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No way a momentum gets CBF over a builder anyways or it's already over.
What's CBF? Also, nothing says you can't switch in between for a tough war or whatever.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 03:26:15 AM
CBF = CyBorg Factory...maybe theres a more common acronym (CF?)
I think the problem with subversion is the extremely high cost. PROBE could also be useful if that was lowerable by variable somewhat, and/or make unit stacks subvertable. It's just not reliable even in a defensive war. Though one can sort of say the same with native life (generally weak for cost until late-game).
PS won't win wars for sure, not like Fund can. But to get up a good sized army first PS is much superior. +2 SUP is huge as is the +2 POLICE. Fund I think generally isn't something that's viable to run for long. Fund+FM could be ok if probing wasn't overly expensive.
Post by: Dio on March 13, 2014, 03:44:48 AM
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 03:58:21 AM
CBF = CyBorg Factory...maybe theres a more common acronym (CF?)
Ah. Well, actually there is are five ways that a momentum-style player can get the cyborg factory and it's not already over. One is that he was a builder-style player earlier, and then switched to a more momentum-based style to either capitalize on his tech advantage or respond to pressure from someone else. There's no need to follow a single strategy throughout the game.
The second way is that all the builders got knocked out of the game (or are effectively out), but there are multiple momentum players (who may at some point switch to builder) fighting for victory.
The third way is that a momentum and builder teamed up and are going for a cooperative victory. Generally doesn't happen because it's seen as cheap, but in a team game where everyone does it, or those who don't have another advantage to compensate (such as being Earthmichael and/or playing on a lower difficulty), or the game is in the context of a larger system with an appropriate cost to teaming up, it would not be cheap and might be done. (And this is a good thing, because it makes for a richer game to have team-ups be possible but at a meta cost.)
The fourth way is that a builder got MMI first, but a momentum player stole the tech and went on to build the project before the builder could. (Most likely with some variant rules to make it harder to finish projects very quickly after getting the tech.)
The fifth way is that a builder did build the CF first, but then a momentum player conquered the base it was in.
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I think the problem with subversion is the extremely high cost.
It's not that high when the target is far from their territory. Which is exactly the situation a momentum player's troops are often in.
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and/or make unit stacks subvertable.
It's on the list.
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PS won't win wars for sure, not like Fund can. But to get up a good sized army first PS is much superior. +2 SUP is huge as is the +2 POLICE.
Yes, PS is good for building up.
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Fund I think generally isn't something that's viable to run for long.
I think it's designed for when you need the edge against a closely matched opponent whom you're fighting a full war with. So not something that's going to be run for long unless you need it to survive.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 05:12:19 AM
I feel the HQ-distance formula is decent, but PROBE is much worse vs a close land enemy. Early wars are actually very often against close enemies (for land) not far ones (as this takes sea units). Granted PROBE would be hard to balance if made much better. It could get to a point where subverting units is more cost effective than making your own.
Re: more viable SE combinations. I think this would only really come into play if higher/lower SE effects were put in place. That is, making +5 POLICE do something beneficial for example. Or allowing new #SOC** effects though I'm not sure modding this is very easy either. So you might be limited to making up new SEs or changing the bonuses/penalties of existing SEs. There would be less capping out I believe if each SE gave smaller amounts of bonus/penalty across more SE categories. Or smaller bonuses and penalties, though this might imbalance certain factions. The big breakpoints of power like mentioned with GROWTH would still exist.
I also believe that SE changing should cost more for bigger empires. In Civ there was a real cost to switching governments on the fly. In SMAC there isn't much of a cost aside from energy. 40/135/etc is a static amount...scaling this with population might have been better. But again maybe not a huge priority...it just often feels like SE changing is really steep early. And the energy cost is inconsequential later game. This is one of the big reasons for SE-changing abuse (little cost to get those breakpoints on a whim).
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 11:31:02 AM
Yea at higher levels, there isn't really one 'builder' or 'momentum' style. Going extreme one way or the other usually won't work. It's really more a game about diplomacy and trading for tech (as with all Civ series) than one of playstyle.
Trading or (in the case of a momentum player) extorting...
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I feel the HQ-distance formula is decent, but PROBE is much worse vs a close land enemy. Early wars are actually very often against close enemies (for land) not far ones (as this takes sea units).
True; in early wars, Fund is probably more for the MORALE boost.
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Re: more viable SE combinations. I think this would only really come into play if higher/lower SE effects were put in place. That is, making +5 POLICE do something beneficial for example. Or allowing new #SOC** effects though I'm not sure modding this is very easy either. So you might be limited to making up new SEs or changing the bonuses/penalties of existing SEs. There would be less capping out I believe if each SE gave smaller amounts of bonus/penalty across more SE categories. Or smaller bonuses and penalties, though this might imbalance certain factions. The big breakpoints of power like mentioned with GROWTH would still exist.
Most combinations do have some use (though it may be rare), and those that don't aren't such a big deal.
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I also believe that SE changing should cost more for bigger empires. In Civ there was a real cost to switching governments on the fly. In SMAC there isn't much of a cost aside from energy. 40/135/etc is a static amount...scaling this with population might have been better. But again maybe not a huge priority...it just often feels like SE changing is really steep early. And the energy cost is inconsequential later game. This is one of the big reasons for SE-changing abuse (little cost to get those breakpoints on a whim).
It's an idea. I'll add it to the list.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 01:06:55 PM
Examining the representation of +/- SEs (SE, range, choices):
ECONOMY -3,+5 (+2 FM, +1 WE, +2 EU)
EFFIC -4,+4 (+2 DE, +2 GR, +1 KN, +2 CY, -2 PS, -2 PL)
SUPPORT -4,+3 (+2 PS, +2 PO, -2 DE, -3 TC)
TALENT (NOT REPRESENTED)
MORALE -4,+4 (+1 FU, +2 PO, +2 TC, -2 WE, -2 EU)
POLICE -5,+3 (+2 PS, +2 TC, -5 FM, -3 CY)
GROWTH -3,+6 (+2 DE, +2 PL, +2 EU, -2 GR)
PLANET -3,+3 (+2 GR, +2 CY, -3 FM)
PROBE -2, +3 (+2 FU, +2 TC, -2 KN)
INDUSTRY -3,+5 (+1 PL, +1 WE, +2 EU, -2 PO)
RESEARCH -5,+5 (+2 KN, +2 CY, -2 FU)
All SEs have a negative represented other than ECON. EFFIC is the most represented and it's also tied for most in excess of the SE cap (3, as +7 is possible). POLICE can also go 3 beyond (-8, 3 beyond -5). The rest are actually pretty good although a few can go in excess by 1 (POLICE, MORALE, PLANET, PROBE all on the + side, SUPPORT by 1 on either side). RESEARCH strikes me as one that isn't well represented (can only get within 1 of + cap, and 3 of - cap). Similar for INDUSTRY but not as extreme.
Summing all SE caps we get a range of 77. For negative SEs, 34 and positive SEs 43. The current SE choices sum to 32 and 47 respectively. So overall if you were to represent everything to the cap, SEs would have slightly more drawbacks than they do currently (mainly stemming from -ECON not represented, and +EFFIC going so high)
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 02:15:45 PM
Yea re: to DIO
Examining the representation of +/- SEs (SE, range, choices):
ECONOMY -3,+5 (+2 FM, +1 WE, +2 EU)
EFFIC -4,+4 (+2 DE, +2 GR, +1 KN, +2 CY, -2 PS, -2 PL)
SUPPORT -4,+3 (+2 PS, +2 PO, -2 DE, -3 TC)
TALENT (NOT REPRESENTED)
MORALE -4,+4 (+1 FU, +2 PO, +2 TC, -2 WE, -2 EU)
POLICE -5,+3 (+2 PS, +2 TC, -5 FM, -3 CY)
GROWTH -3,+6 (+2 DE, +2 PL, +2 EU, -2 GR)
PLANET -3,+3 (+2 GR, +2 CY, -3 FM)
PROBE -2, +3 (+2 FU, +2 TC, -2 KN)
INDUSTRY -3,+5 (+1 PL, +1 WE, +2 EU, -2 PO)
RESEARCH -5,+5 (+2 KN, +2 CY, -2 FU)
ECON can actually take any decrease, though to make -4 or lower different than -3 you need to mod to increase base energy or recycling tanks energy.
EFFIC actually can benefit from any amount of increase, though past +4 there's no new name and no effect on the penalty for having different ECON and LABS settings.
PLANET actually can be affected by any amount; the ecodamage effect is limited to +3/-2 (by default; it can be changed in alphax), and fungus production and worm capture effects are capped at -3/+3, but the effect on psi combat is unlimited.
And you didn't list faction and project bonuses/penalties.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 04:27:32 PM
That's interesting re: ECON. Actually worse ECON ratings also affect bases on energy bonus squares (like rivers, Uranium Flats). So uninuitively it is better to build off these types of squares if at -3 ECON and below.
Here's a SE set you can play around with. Everything can go from the SE min to the SE max, with a default faction like the Firaxians.
#SOCIO
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, +POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC, +RESEARCH, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +MORALE, +GROWTH, +PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY,--EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, +SUPPORT, ---ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, -MORALE, --EFFIC
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, +EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++RESEARCH, --SUPPORT, ---POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +MORALE, -GROWTH, ---RESEARCH
Might require some tweaking...I'll try a few games with the SEs equally represented.
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 05:50:28 PM
Yea that's the tough part - faction and facilty specific bonuses. If anything you can argue though that they compound it.
That's interesting re: ECON. Actually worse ECON ratings also affect bases on energy bonus squares (like rivers, Uranium Flats). So uninuitively it is better to build off these types of squares if at -3 ECON and below.
Here's a SE set you can play around with. Everything can go from the SE min to the SE max, with a default faction like the Firaxians.
#SOCIO
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, +POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC, +RESEARCH, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +MORALE, +GROWTH, +PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY,--EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, +SUPPORT, ---ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, -MORALE, --EFFIC
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, +EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++RESEARCH, --SUPPORT, ---POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +MORALE, -GROWTH, ---RESEARCH
Hmm...
-Until the late game there would be (without relevant faction bonuses or penalties) no pacifism, no pop booming unless you can pull off a golden age at 0 efficiency with 1 police unit or 1 efficiency with no police, and no subversion immunity.
-Police state would be fairly good for momentum, especially ICS momentum.
-Democratic would be extremely strong for an energy-focused builder; once you had decent psych multipliers the loss of a single police unit would be far more than outweighed by the extra energy to psych.
-Green would pretty much require you to go for a captured-worm-heavy approach.
-Power would be quite strong for wartime; -ECONOMY is fairly mild.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 06:33:06 PM
Green might be a bit weak, but with ecodamage being relevant it's your only choice unless you build eco damage reducers and go light on minerals. It's strong early with the captures. Where Green falls off is that produced MWs are weak, due to high cost, slow movement, and countered by Empath/Trance). Taking MWs down to 20 minerals, Spore Launchers/Isles to 30, and Locusts to 40 would help balance that out. Then for a Green player the cost is still fairly high (+30% on these values).
I'll have to see for Demo. The bonuses seem rather mild. I think on Transcend --POLICE is about as bad as --SUPPORT was. At least early until you get excess energy reserves - the second worker needs a Rec Commons. On the other hand, getting the 10 minerals from a new base means it only costs 30, and will support you up to size 3. Early game -2 SUP does sting, that's -1 mineral a base which is ~2 energy. Could be really strong for Spartans & Morgan though. Maybe no worse than PS currently for Sparta or Wealth for Morgan.
To make early game pacifism, more -POLICE would have to go to Demo or FM again. Thus Cyber would need an alternative penalty. To get early game subversion, PROBE would have to go into the first three tiers only. Not sure what would replace PROBE in Thought Control thematically. Never found complete subversion immunity was a huge thing to go for, it's already super costly at +1/+2 PROBE.
Making early game pop booms harder might not be such a bad thing really. That would make it less beneficial to sit on small bases that then boom with Creche+TF. More difficulty in booming up captured bases for a momentum style might be okay. It should take significant energy/psych to take your worker cost from 30-70N down to just 2.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 06:38:57 PM
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 07:48:29 PM
Yea good comments. I too think Power might play out a bit strong. What if PS and Power penalties were instead swapped? ---ECON would be a huge hit to PS ICSing. Also --GROWTH is more crippling with harder pop booms.
Could work, though you still end up that a large portion of the range of SE settings simply can't be used until the late game.
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I find the current PS (+2 POL, +2 SUP, -2 EFF) very strong for ICSing too...but that's kind of its purpose (expansion/control). You can control 6 superdrones (9 as Sparta) easily, and get 4 units supported per base. The energy is poor but you can steal techs with minerals only (probe team).
If techsteal had an energy cost, though...
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Green might be a bit weak, but with ecodamage being relevant it's your only choice unless you build eco damage reducers and go light on minerals.
You wouldn't have to go that light if you've got formers and empath troops to troubleshoot.
(I also forgot to mention: Wealth looks extremely powerful.)
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I'll have to see for Demo. The bonuses seem rather mild.
+RESEARCH is not mild, and with Market and a bunch of pact brothers, neither is +ECONOMY.
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Maybe no worse than PS currently for Sparta or Wealth for Morgan.
Wealth doesn't boost RESEARCH; in fact, it comes at the cost of the only midgame way to boost RESEARCH.
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To make early game pacifism, more -POLICE would have to go to Demo or FM again. Thus Cyber would need an alternative penalty
Or just reduce it. But yes, that's the problem of your idea here: By limiting the total available with future society to a fairly moderate range, what's available without future society (i.e. most of the game) is a very narrow range, meaning that a substantial portion of what's available is simply not used for most of the game.
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Making early game pop booms harder might not be such a bad thing really. That would make it less beneficial to sit on small bases that then boom with Creche+TF. More difficulty in booming up captured bases for a momentum style might be okay. It should take significant energy/psych to take your worker cost from 30-70N down to just 2.
True.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 08:25:38 PM
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Or just reduce it. But yes, that's the problem of your idea here: By limiting the total available with future society to a fairly moderate range, what's available without future society (i.e. most of the game) is a very narrow range, meaning that a substantial portion of what's available is simply not used for most of the game.
Yes - unless your faction has an innate bonus. Another (perhaps better?) way to do it would be to lessen the overall impact of the Future Society SEs, since they factor in very late anyways. Instead giving them more mild bonuses/penalties. We can slot the top 3 modifiers (+GROWTH/+IND/+ECON) to each. Now of course some of this will require a re-interpretation of the SE to real-life/game theme. This is more an experiment to see how the gameplay might turn out if a 0 SE faction could not go over/under cap...not saying this is really better. Maybe just something different that allows more combination but also makes each SE choice less impactful.
The Morgan ref was that you could run Green+Wealth for the +2 ECON, giving overall good research. All around it's generally better than FM+Knowledge/Wealth. Wealth has a lot less downside than FM.
+GROWTH is definitely the hardest SE to balance out. I noted that Yang can now easy-boom with Fund+Planned. Also, Morgan cannot boom even with GA due to PLANNED aversion. I was trying to limit +GROWTH to +3 in the first tier, and +2 for Yang. So pretty much Demo needs to have +GROWTH, and the other +2 GROWTH has to be split amongst two other SEs. This would give more options to the factions with all 3 available but also make it more difficult.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2014, 09:16:49 PM
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, -----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++PROBE, ---RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, +GROWTH,+INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,--EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, +EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT, ---ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH, --PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --EFFIC, --RESEARCH
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE, +PROBE, ++INDUSTRY, -GROWTH
Generally toned down the lategame SEs in this set.
Post by: Dio on March 13, 2014, 09:52:38 PM
Yea that's the tough part - faction and facilty specific bonuses. If anything you can argue though that they compound it.
That's interesting re: ECON. Actually worse ECON ratings also affect bases on energy bonus squares (like rivers, Uranium Flats). So uninuitively it is better to build off these types of squares if at -3 ECON and below.
Here's a SE set you can play around with. Everything can go from the SE min to the SE max, with a default faction like the Firaxians.
#SOCIO
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, +POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC, +RESEARCH, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +MORALE, +GROWTH, +PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY,--EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, +SUPPORT, ---ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, -MORALE, --EFFIC
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, +EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++RESEARCH, --SUPPORT, ---POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +MORALE, -GROWTH, ---RESEARCH
Might require some tweaking...I'll try a few games with the SEs equally represented.
Some of the models are very similiar to some the ideas I had. Just be aware that having more than four different penalities/bonuses to a social model causes the icons to run outside the alloted space on the Social Engineering window.
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2014, 10:12:25 PM
Yes - unless your faction has an innate bonus. Another (perhaps better?) way to do it would be to lessen the overall impact of the Future Society SEs, since they factor in very late anyways.
Not sure that's necessary; late-game SEs should be impressive.
Also, let's look at what combinations are currently affected by the lack of cap:
For ECONOMY, Morgan (or someone with golden ages everywhere) won't benefit as much from Market/Wealth/Eudaimonic. If you're that late in the game, you probably don't want to run Market anyway due to ecodamage, especially if you aren't running Cybernetic (and therefore need Green to get +4 EFFIC).
For EFFIC, it means that Police State/Planned is slightly less bad for the Pirates (who lose one of their downsides in the process). It's still not something they're likely to run. And if they have creches, even that doesn't apply.
For SUPPORT, it means that if you're running Thought Control and not Police State or Power, you have less reason not to run Democracy (none for Morgan unless he plans to go Fund). Thought Control without Power isn't too likely anyway. It also (on the other end) means that running Police State and Power is more appealing to Morgan than it would otherwise be (it's still not something he's going to do often), and that if you are running both the Living Refinery won't do much for you unless you're also running Thought Control. (Fairly limited situation.) And that the Believers have much less reason to run both Police State and Power unless also running Thought Control (they probably prefer Fund pre-Thought Control anyway). On the flip side, if they are running both Police State and Power, Thought Control is essentially free for them.
For MORALE, it means that if you're running Power/Thought Control you have less reason to run Fund (somewhat significant), and that the Spartans have less reason to run both Power and Thought Control. (This is also somewhat significant; Spartans may prefer to run a late-game Police State/Green/Power for conquest and not go with future society at all.) It also means that the Gaians suffer less from Wealth/Eudaimonic...actually, they did anyway just because MORALE doesn't affect native life.
For POLICE, it means that the Angels suffer less from Market (they were probably going to run it anyway; large armies outside their territory isn't their thing), that if you're going Market without Police State there's no reason not to go Cybernetic (not such a big problem; you'd probably go Cybernetic anyway just to mitigate the ecodamage somewhat). On the other side, it means that the Spartans (or anyone with the Ascetic Virtues) have less reason to run Thought Control if already running Police State, and the Spartans running Police State have less benefit from Ascetic Virtues. Only really significant thing there is that the Spartans once again don't like Thought Control.
For GROWTH, it means that if you have creches and golden ages everywhere (or just creches and are running Eudaimonic) and are running Democracy, Planned loses much of its appeal. The former is not such a major issue, as "golden ages everywhere" isn't that common; the latter is more significant. The Hive and Usurpers also benefit less from Eudamonic/Planned (without Dem, which they can't run), but then that translates to -2 (-1 with Knowledge) efficiency in the late game so it's not something they're likely to do anyway.
PLANET can go up or down indefinitely in its effect on psi combat...and if you've got very high or very low PLANET psi combat is going to be a significant consideration for you.
For PROBE, it means the University can run Knowledge consequence-free if they're not planning to get covert ops centers anyway and aren't going Thought Control. (Why would the University not get covert ops centers anyway to mitigate their probe vulnerability?) It also means that the Believers and Angels have less benefit from Fund/Thought Control. (But it can still be worth it if not going power, for the morale bonus.)
For INDUSTRY, it means that if the Drones are running Eudaimonic there isn't as much reason for them to run both Planned and Wealth. They would be going Dem anyway for EFFIC (-2 EFFIC is not what you want when you've got +3 ECONOMY), and we already know that that makes Planned fairly redundant.
It has no effect for RESEARCH, as to get +5 you need +6 anyway.
So the total actually significant effects of bypassing the caps are:
-Power/Fund/Thought Control isn't such a good combination. This is okay, as Police State/Power/Thought Control would probably be better anyway.
-Police State/Power/Thought Control is really good for the Believers. I don't think that's such a disaster; they could use a strong late-game strategy.
-Spartans really don't like Thought Control. This is a possible issue, though not that huge.
-Dem/Planned/Eudaimonic is fairly weak unless you're expanding (in which case it gives you pre-creche pop booms). Planned is fairly rare lategame anyway, I think.
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The Morgan ref was that you could run Green+Wealth for the +2 ECON, giving overall good research. All around it's generally better than FM+Knowledge/Wealth.
Depends on your priorities and situation. Morgan running Dem/Market/Knowledge with enough pact brothers and a global trade pact can out-tech the best Zak can do.
Post by: Nexii on March 14, 2014, 11:31:30 AM
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Some of the models are very similiar to some the ideas I had. Just be aware that having more than four different penalities/bonuses to a social model causes the icons to run outside the alloted space on the Social Engineering window.
Yea I noted this too, 5 SEs is a lot in the window unless most have just 1 for +/-. Hence I reworked them such that they only get up to 4 +/- in the second set above.
One argument for a balanced SE set is that they make the factions feel more unique. If your faction has a penalty then even with SE focus you can't hit the cap. Granted some SPs and facilities help you overcome this but still, it might shift some faction-specific strategies.
I'll see if I can't write up some short flavor texts for my most recently posted set. However going to balance test this a bit first. I think Wealth might be somewhat weak compared to Knowledge? Then again +2 IND is pretty strong for churning out facilities and SPs. I could see more Knowledge/Wealth swaps based on need.
Free Drones might be fun with the below - 5 IND early game seems so strong. Then again, no Green is a much more painful aversion with +PLANET taken out of Cyber.
Post by: Nexii on March 17, 2014, 09:06:44 PM
The hardest thing to balance around is the -4 EFFIC penalty. Right now in my set Planned+Wealth isn't viable. In the default set PS+Planned has the same issue. The goal here was to make more viable combinations of SEs.
PS boosted to +2 POL, +2 SUP, -2 GROWTH - was a bit weak at just +1 SUP. This strengthens PS later game but makes it worse earlier game. Considered a PS <> Power penalty swap but I think it'd make Yang just way too good.
Demo is a bit too good, changed to +1 EFFIC. Still very solid since no defensive military downside.
Fund seems about right. With Trance at -1 cost, you can fight somewhat defensively against native life.
FM - about right, minerals cost is painful early. later on the ecodamage makes it hard to manage, but the upside is really strong. recommend something like 1000
Planned was very weak, reduced penalty to -1 EFFIC
Green a bit weak (even with native life recosting and ecodamage fixes), raised to +2 EFFIC
Power to +2 MORALE, -3 ECONOMY (slight tonedown. compared to Fund's downside it was too good)
Knowledge - seemed okay
Wealth - seemed okay
TC to -1 EFFIC, -1 GROWTH (general distrust amongst citizens). +2 IND is very strong combined with Planned/Wealth you can get +5 IND - halving mineral costs. By late game you'll have Creches so this won't put you to -4 EFFIC anyways.
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,++SUPPORT,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++PROBE,---RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, +GROWTH,+INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,++EFFIC,---INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,---ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY,--EFFIC,--RESEARCH
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,+PROBE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
I think with +EFFIC being harder to get, you might see games go a bit later to conclusion with this set. It isn't near as easy to hit +4 with a huge empire.
I feel that with this set, you can go something other than Green with PS or Fund. PS can go with FM or Planned as can Fundamentalism. Power/Knowledge/Wealth now more strongly correlate to what they're intended to help (conquer, discover, build).
Post by: Skyagusta on April 01, 2014, 06:00:23 AM
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive, None, +POLICE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC
Democracy, Psych, ++EFFIC, ++GROWTH, --POLICE, -SUPPORT
Theocracy, Brain, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Barter, None, -EFFIC
Free Trade, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --MORALE
Planned, IndEcon, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --EFFIC
Green, AlphCen, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -GROWTH
Junta, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, -RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Chemist, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --PROBE, ---POLICE
Wealth, BioMac, +ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT, ---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, OptComp, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, --PROBE, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, CentGen, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +PLANET, ---POLICE
Thought Control, HomoSup, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
I'm basically trying to balance a variety of different approaches while giving each a significant drawback or two. For example, trying to maximize energy will result in strong mineral penalties. Maxing warmongering effects will result in energy and research lagging behind. Going full research means your probe rating will be in the basement. Also trying to keep everything in the same ballpark as realistic if possible.
I like the above idea of improving PS/Planned. I think the biggest drawback of Planned is not running FM or Green, therefore it should probably get a decent boost. PS I also feel is underpowered as a mid-game option. Maybe reduce Planned EFFIC penalty to 1 and change PS to - or --GROWTH? Would love to get any suggestions.
Post by: JarlWolf on April 01, 2014, 09:15:28 AM
It shouldn't limit growth because under such a system population growth would be encouraged and properly supported, families being supported by state programs. So it makes sense to keep growth bonus...
If you are looking for a bit of a problem with Planned.... maybe -1 research, and either remove the efficiency penalty altogether or reduce it to a -1. The reasoning for that is that Planned systems, while they CAN be inefficient, they can also be very efficient. It really just depends on the management; if you take Socialist system in Sweden its very efficient with the economic sector, or if you took economic improvements within Poland, Ukraine or parts of European Russia within former Soviet Union industrial progress was almost explosive in growth and produced high amounts of material and goods. But on the flip side you might have inefficiencies due to management/tensions, such as in East Germany...
The research penalty comes from bureaucracies or worker controlled focuses deviating from technological development/competition and more focusing on upgrading and expanding industry- especially since such systems often ignore consumerist style demands of comfort and other such things and make vehicles and equipment more based on function then other elements.
So, how should that look?
2+ Growth, 1+Industry, -1 Research or -1 Research/ -1 Efficiency, and if you have both maybe bump up Industry to 2+.
Just a thought on that one there-
Post by: Geo on April 01, 2014, 07:02:02 PM
Post by: Skyagusta on April 02, 2014, 02:25:53 AM
Post by: JarlWolf on April 02, 2014, 08:10:25 PM
I feel minus research doesn't automatically follow in a Planned society, Jarlwolf. To take your Swedish example, I don't think there's anything inferior with their education system or research advances. Heck, it's almost the only mostly neutral country in the world that can keep up with advanced military tech compared to world powers.
And there was nothing wrong with education or sciences within the former Soviet Union either Geo. Matter of fact, we were leaders of the space race... but the issue was that on a domestic, and sometimes industrial level technological improvements did not occur as rapidly as they would in the United States due to either bureaucracy or lack of interest in those sectors. Edit: Or how to better phrase it, poor management. Of course this was not universal everywhere- its just a matter of how good the operation is setup...
Thanks JarlWolf for the indepth analysis. I like the idea of -RESEARCH and -EFFIC for Planned. ++IND is a little too strong though.... Maybe +3 Growth instead?No, too much growth is uncanny of a Planned system, its all supposed to be rather controlled.
Thinking on it more-
I would put it like this:
2+Growth, 1+Industry, 1+ Support, with -1 Planet, -1 Efficiency.
Reasons: Family growth is encouraged, state programs are there to help.
Industry is vitalized, improved and expanded by state sponsored programs.
The 1+ support is from the general populace giving to society either through communal participation and taxation/sharing of resources.
The -1 Efficiency is from the re-distribution of wealth and maintaining such a public system.
Planned systems often, but not always, have massive amounts of industrialization that can drastically change an environment, for better or worse.
In Alpha Centauri, AI against Planned will say its pollutive as well...
The research penalty, thinking upon it, would go better with more authoritarian mindsets such as Police or Power. The focus isn't creative thinking or research, but rather security, control, or the army. Of course one could counter again and say that research for military applications would be better... but not overall perhaps.
Post by: Skyagusta on April 03, 2014, 02:19:26 AM
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive, None, +POLICE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -RESEARCH, -ECONOMY
Democracy, Psych, ++EFFIC, ++GROWTH, --POLICE, -SUPPORT
Theocracy, Brain, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Barter, None, -EFFIC
Free Trade, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --MORALE
Planned, IndEcon, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, -EFFIC, -PLANET
Green, AlphCen, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -GROWTH
Junta, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, -RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Chemist, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --PROBE, ---POLICE
Wealth, BioMac, +ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT, ---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, OptComp, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, +RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, CentGen, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +PLANET, --POLICE
Thought Control, HomoSup, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
I think this strengthens PS/Planned adequately, especially in the early game. +2 Support, +2 Police, +2 Growth, +Industry, -Research, -Efficiency, -Planet, -Econ. That is a pretty powerful early game set up, albeit with energy drawbacks (exactly what I'm looking for).
Anything else in my settings that look over/underpowered? I have noticed the AIs use Demo/FM/Wealth ALOT more than in standard SMAC, which means even tech or energy impaired factions can generate some serious cash and breakthroughs in 5 turns or less. Of course, I also modded all the factions to pacifist (exceptions Yang, Miriam, Santiago, Aliens). I find myself trying to instigate wars between AIs just so I can catch up.
Another thing I've noticed is that Domai tends to run Planned/Wealth/Cyber (+5 industry!) and he runs away with many games (can build SPs like nobody's business). Thinking of maybe giving him aversion Wealth or removing industry bonus from Cybernetic. But concerned that this would nerf Cybernetic too much relative to Eudaimonic.
Edit- Forgot to say, thanks JarlWolf for your excellent suggestions. Exactly what I was looking for.
Post by: JarlWolf on April 03, 2014, 02:55:45 AM
Maybe adding 1+ support might equal it out? (Unless my memory is not right on the stats of said policy.)
Post by: Skyagusta on April 03, 2014, 03:20:52 AM
What do you think about this?
Police State- +3 Police, +2 Support, -1 Research, -1 Economy
Planned- +2 Growth, +1 Industry, +1 Support, -2 Efficiency
Your energy production would take a serious hit, but that is one STRONG choice for the early game. Max Police, max Support, +1 Industry and +2 Growth? Who needs energy credits? The problem is, would AI momentum factions demolish the builder factions every game? And I would need to change Thought Control as this would make it totally obsolete.
Decisions, decisions.
Post by: JarlWolf on April 03, 2014, 04:13:23 AM
But that is just my opinion.
Post by: Geo on April 03, 2014, 08:46:51 AM
Post by: Skyagusta on April 03, 2014, 12:16:29 PM
Post by: Yitzi on April 03, 2014, 12:22:36 PM
Agreed. Suggestions?
I think that your problem is that "Junta" is a government type, and thus would belong under politics rather than values, and in fact it's close to a police state. Replace it with "Militarism", and then replace the -RESEARCH (which does not fit with a militaristic focus) with -EFFIC (or --EFFIC).
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 03, 2014, 04:49:57 PM
Post by: JarlWolf on April 03, 2014, 05:13:10 PM
But if you are looking for a word for military leadership (that isn't a fractured bunch of generals) you are looking for stratocracy. However, why the name change from Power?
Post by: Skyagusta on April 03, 2014, 11:00:21 PM
Lately I'm seeing more AI factions than I would like sticking with the default SE choices late into the game, so I'm adding a few more penalties there. I'd like to slow down the early game anyway. Latest iteration:
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive, None, +POLICE, --EFFIC
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -GROWTH, -ECONOMY
Democracy, Psych, ++EFFIC, ++GROWTH, --POLICE, -SUPPORT
Theocracy, Brain, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Barter, None, --GROWTH, -ECONOMY
Free Market, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --MORALE
Planned, IndEcon, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, -EFFIC, -PLANET
Green, AlphCen, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Militarism, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Chemist, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --PROBE, ---POLICE
Wealth, BioMac, +ECONOMY, +INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT, ---MORALE
Primitive, None, -PLANET
Cybernetic, OptComp, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, +RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, CentGen, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +PLANET, --POLICE
Thought Control, HomoSup, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
So starting out all factions have +POLICE, +MORALE (helps AIs with drone and worm problems, which can prevent them from getting off the ground for long periods), --EFFIC, --GROWTH, --RESEARCH, and -ECONOMY. Hopefully this will push most AIs into making some kind of choice for each area.
Can't decide on whether to make Police State +3 Police and change out Thought Control. I basically never see AIs using TC and I don't either. But I'd rather have more than one option for increasing your Police rating. Could give a +1 Police to militarism.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 03, 2014, 11:03:59 PM
Post by: Geo on April 04, 2014, 04:28:09 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive, None, +POLICE, --EFFIC
Barter, None, --GROWTH, -ECONOMY
Survival, None, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Primitive, None, -PLANET
Seeing the SE tabel again, I wondered what would happen if these four were linked to a technology. Would the game crash, or would we have an extra SE setting?
Post by: Yitzi on April 04, 2014, 04:41:33 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Society
Primitive, None, +POLICE, --EFFIC
Barter, None, --GROWTH, -ECONOMY
Survival, None, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Primitive, None, -PLANET
Seeing the SE tabel again, I wondered what would happen if these four were linked to a technology. Would the game crash, or would we have an extra SE setting?
My guess is that you'd start with them active, but once you switched from them you wouldn't be able to switch back without that technology, and they also wouldn't show until you got that technology.
Post by: Geo on April 04, 2014, 07:36:27 PM
Post by: Nexii on April 09, 2014, 08:46:13 PM
Post by: Geo on April 09, 2014, 09:56:08 PM
May want to lessen that to -1 GROWTH
Or keep it to make things more challenging? ;)
Post by: Nexii on April 12, 2014, 06:54:47 PM
Autocratic, None, +POLICE,-SUPPORT,-GROWTH,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+SUPPORT,--GROWTH,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,+++PROBE,---RESEARCH
Barter, None, -ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY
Free Market, IndEcon, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Survival, None, +MORALE,-EFFIC,-RESEARCH
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, -PLANET
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,---SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
So the default is -1 to all SE other than POLICE and MORALE (arguably these would be the priorities immediately upon planetfall).
I've found with this there's more viable combinations than before. There's 3 ways to hit +2 ECON (2 of: Demo, FM, Wealth). Kind of a pick your poison for the penalty. What this does is allows you to have a free choice in any tier. So you could go Fund or PS and have +2 ECON. Obviously not with Planned, but Demo/Green/Wealth, and Demo/FM/Power or Knowledge also give +2 ECON. Planned can still go decently with Demo and/or Wealth to take the sting out of the -3 ECON, but generally it's more suited to momentum style.
The pure production and war SEs got a relative boost. Fund is a lot more powerful but also has a higher downside.
With +2 GROWTH on Demo and FM, Pop Boom is back. I think it needs to stay in otherwise builder SEs tend to be very weak.
EFFIC being much harder to raise and lower changes the game a lot. It's much harder to have a vast empire with Demo and Green at +1 EFFIC each. On the other hand, it's now possible to run PS+Planned. Generally makes for a longer game as outright conquering distant enemies gives very little energy. The strategy of base returning is more common I would say. You can get to +4 EFFIC fairly early with Demo/FM/Knowledge but with Knowledge's -MORALE and Demo's -5 POLICE you aren't going to be conquering anyone.
Post by: Geo on April 12, 2014, 11:05:05 PM
But keep in mind the effect of some secret projects like the Living Refinery (huge support boast) and Cloning Vats (removing the negative effects of certain SE choices).
Post by: Nexii on April 13, 2014, 12:14:09 AM
Post by: JarlWolf on April 13, 2014, 12:19:00 AM
Post by: Nexii on April 13, 2014, 12:36:07 AM
If I was going to tweak Green down it would get -1 GROW from PS or -1 IND from Power. Power then might lose its +1 SUP to PS in the latter. I do think -2 IND is pretty steep though. Players always used to say the default Power SE was terrible, because it had -2 IND...
Edit: another possibility would be to give Green the -1 SUP from FM
Post by: Nexii on April 15, 2014, 04:58:11 AM
Another effect of -2 EFFIC starting meant that Pirates couldn't run PS early (as it would put them to -4). PKs couldn't get Planned as a first choice which I didn't really like. More or less if you put -2 EFFIC in one category, it makes any other category with -EFFIC as a first pick unviable. So I moved -EFFIC from Survival, removed -SUPPORT from Autocratic, and added -RESEARCH to Survival.
Made a few minor tweaks then, reducing Green slightly and boosting Police State slightly. -ECON from the start was too harsh for Hive+Cult because it's more penalizing at negative amounts early. Hive couldn't get any early energy unless lucky enough to be on a river or monolith. -2 ECON was really bad for Cult also as they don't have any sort of early offsetting bonus. Instead gave Barter -EFFIC,-IND,-PLANET.
Autocratic, None, +POLICE,-EFFIC,-GROWTH,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+SUPPORT,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,+++PROBE,---RESEARCH
Barter, None, -INDUSTRY,-PLANET,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,-GROWTH
Survival, None, +MORALE,--RESEARCH,-PROBE
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,---SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
I felt like Power might be a bit weak (vs Survival) so I gave it -PROBE as well. Generally taking penalties from similar tier works well...and flavorfully sort of works (simple governments with no guiding principles/morales would be more susceptible to infiltration). As far as Power, it now combines much stronger with Fundamentalism. +4 MORALE/+3 PROBE is really brutal to fight against. Especially when the -IND can be offset with the new Planned.
Demo/FM/Knowledge obviously now being the ultimate techer/builder SE. Planned+Wealth in periods where you need to pop out improvements/SP.
Post by: Nexii on April 15, 2014, 05:19:28 AM
Post by: JarlWolf on April 15, 2014, 07:05:46 AM
Post by: Nexii on April 15, 2014, 02:06:10 PM
Maybe "Traditional" economy is a better descriptor? It's similar to Barter in a sense. Outdated economic systems from Earth should have some negative Planet I feel. Thematically the environmental devastation on Earth is mentioned. So that could be a sort of 'hold-over' - and/or that humans haven't yet realized the fragility of Planet's ecosystems.
Post by: Geo on April 15, 2014, 02:20:25 PM
Post by: Nexii on April 15, 2014, 02:39:14 PM
Post by: Nexii on April 20, 2014, 05:28:56 AM
Autocratic, None, +POLICE,-EFFIC,-GROWTH,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+SUPPORT,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,+++PROBE,---RESEARCH
Barter, None, +PROBE,-INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,-GROWTH
Survival, None, +MORALE,--RESEARCH,-PROBE
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,---SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
I feel like Planned may be a bit weak? Though it has its (ab)uses. Switching to it to finish a 80% finished SP is a big one. And it's pretty good when only minerals matter (total war mode, or to just make probes and steal tech). If your tech is way ahead of your facilities I suppose it's good then too. Perhaps when Solar can be modded this will be a bit more balanced, as the base square currently accounts for too much of total early-game energy production. Instead of toning down Forests I'm of the opinion Solar needs a production boost (+1E to all elevations, i.e. 2E at 0-999m elevation). This would make +2 ECON somewhat less useful before lifting energy cap (which I put to OptComp). But I think that's fine as generally lifting nutrients (Gene) or minerals (IA) comes earlier.
Demo+FM is definitely quite powerful. It's possible to boom without Creches now. But on the other hand, it's impossible to really war with Demo+FM.
PS feels like it's a bit weak at times. Although, support I feel is underrated. Early game even +1 SUP can be equal to +2 IND. But it peters out...leaving PS mostly only with its drone control. I think once SE switches cost less for small empires, it'll see a little more use. That and more relevance for late-game SUP.
Post by: Yitzi on April 20, 2014, 12:55:45 PM
PS feels like it's a bit weak at times. Although, support I feel is underrated. Early game even +1 SUP can be equal to +2 IND. But it peters out...leaving PS mostly only with its drone control. I think once SE switches cost less for small empires, it'll see a little more use. That and more relevance for late-game SUP.
Changing the unit cost formula to make costs keep up with production and setting the support divisor to nonzero should substantially boost the relevance of late-game SUPPORT.
Post by: Nexii on April 20, 2014, 03:25:16 PM
Planned isn't too bad by the way...especially for Yang/Drones. IND gets more powerful the more you get. This caused me to discover a perhaps known exploit/flaw...SE switching to gain free minerals on crawler turnins. Since crawler cost changes with IND, you can make crawlers in Planned, then switch to Green to increase their cost. Turn in crawlers for an SP in Green, then go back to Planned all in the same turn. Thus you can get +50% minerals (assuming base of 0 IND) from your crawler turnins for a cost of just 40 energy. At higher IND this exploit is more pronounced...at most it can be 2.6x the minerals but this would typically require switching SEs on 3 tiers.
Post by: Yitzi on April 20, 2014, 05:11:11 PM
I think this is why I was trying to argue against reactors not substantially reducing unit cost, because it would also make support costs flat.
Keep in mind, though, that cheaper units means more units, which also increases support costs; it just isn't affected as much by SUPPORT rating.
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I also had the (perhaps better) idea of support instead being tied to reactor *type*. For example 2 support for fusion, 3 for quantum, 4 for singularity. If reactors improved combat vs native life, with native life costing about half what it is now that may balance it all. That sort of change may make it viable to make it so higher reactors improve former time.
Interesting idea, but one that would get somewhat complicated and I don't really think it's that necessary.
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A personal gripe moreso but having 10+ formers per base late game isn't the most fun game play. I'd rather play with higher Clean costs and formers amping up more late game. But that would be a big change...especially things like allowing a former to do more than 1 improvement per turn.
Yeah, it'd be a big change. Perhaps a better way would be to have an option where "autoimprove base" formers will only help other formers but not start any terraforming on their own; that way, you'd still have all those formers but wouldn't have to micromanage them all.
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Planned isn't too bad by the way...especially for Yang/Drones.
Very true. It does have negative effects on your energy, though, and obviously can't be done while running Green to keep ecodamage under control.
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IND gets more powerful the more you get. This caused me to discover a perhaps known exploit/flaw...SE switching to gain free minerals on crawler turnins. Since crawler cost changes with IND, you can make crawlers in Planned, then switch to Green to increase their cost. Turn in crawlers for an SP in Green, then go back to Planned all in the same turn. Thus you can get +50% minerals (assuming base of 0 IND) from your crawler turnins for a cost of just 40 energy. At higher IND this exploit is more pronounced...at most it can be 2.6x the minerals but this would typically require switching SEs on 3 tiers.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the "turn in crawlers for SP" system in the first place, as there are a lot of exploits that can be done with it.
Post by: Nexii on April 21, 2014, 07:08:35 PM
Also if re-coding formers that way is less work I say go for it.
Planned seems fine really. Maybe a bit too good even as I play more, because you can just steal tech with all that mineral production. I think with Solar modded to 2E base, and some tech steal cost, it will be more balanced. Between the more punishing SEs, ecodamages, and increasing forest former time, the game is definitely slower. May reduce tech costs overall somewhat until Solar can be modded to compensate. I think Demo+FM can still win out with commerce, but I was a bit surprised how competitive PS+Planned is.
Post by: Yitzi on April 23, 2014, 04:59:07 PM
Yea I'm not a fan of crawlers into SP. 50% conversion rate that any other unit gets would be sufficient. That reminds me to test the same exploit with disbanding.
Also if re-coding formers that way is less work I say go for it.
I don't know if it would be less work in terms of coding...but it would be a lot less work when you add in the issues involved in making such a big change not break the game.
It'd still be fairly big, though, so probably not until I start taking requests.
Post by: Nexii on April 23, 2014, 07:17:55 PM
I wouldn't say there's too many glaring imbalances left in the early to mid game. Some really good work with PLANET, SUPPORT, POLICE now all being very relevant. PROBE SE being generally very weak is probably the only one left - which I know is on your list for Infiltrate. I'd suggest when tech steal costs are added, making those also dependent on the target faction's PROBE. Fundamentalism should be a decent choice when ahead and coveting the tech lead in addition to war? Right now I found it was rarely picked even with Subversion immunity. Granted versus AI, its great since they cheat to subvert for next to 0 energy...against human players, not so much.
How about making the 5 turns of no research per starting -RESEARCH SE a variable, and/or making it a toggle for default SEs not counting against? 20-25 years of no tech is pretty brutal. Alternatively I suppose I could balance my set without Survival getting +MORALE. Issue mostly is that Values SEs would be weak if not for -2/-3 RESEARCH on Survival Values. And they're the hardest tier to put duplicate side-benefits into, since a lot of the primary benefits are only +1. Another relatively minor related thing, but I always felt that while under the no research penalty, all energy allocation should go to Econ (or Econ+Psych) by default. That or the SE screen should go to 9999 turns discoveries to warn you that Labs are being wasted?
Post by: Yitzi on April 23, 2014, 07:26:43 PM
I wouldn't say there's too many glaring imbalances left in the early to mid game. Some really good work with PLANET, SUPPORT, POLICE now all being very relevant. PROBE SE being generally very weak is probably the only one left - which I know is on your list for Infiltrate. I'd suggest when tech steal costs are added, making those also dependent on the target faction's PROBE.
Definitely...and in the same way as subversion costs.
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How about making the 5 turns of no research per starting -RESEARCH SE a variable
Is it -5 per -RESEARCH, or -10 for any negative RESEARCH? Any testing done on that?
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and/or making it a toggle for default SEs not counting against?
That'd take some work, but might be feasible at some point. It's not such a high priority, though, as having effects to default SEs is not exactly normal (no offense intended).
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Another relatively minor related thing, but I always felt that while under the no research penalty, all energy allocation should go to Econ (or Econ+Psych) by default. That or the SE screen should go to 9999 turns discoveries to warn you that Labs are being wasted?
It's something that I think most people know, so it's not such a priority. When I start taking requests, though, I could probably do it.
Post by: Nexii on April 23, 2014, 08:12:01 PM
Another way I could balance around this I suppose is to just give all factions Centauri Ecology (or Biogenetics) to start the game, and give Gaians (or PKs) a second tech (Ethical Calculus, perhaps).
Post by: Nexii on April 27, 2014, 07:56:55 PM
Fundamentalism also gets some GROWTH due to 'traditional family values'. Notably this makes booming easier for Yang, who I feel hurts the most from the PS changes.
Wealth weakened a bit, it's always been a bit too powerful in all situations. Knowledge changed, and Cybernetic got less penalty. Now all factions can boom before Eud, though a few (Gaia, Aki, Pirates) rely on Golden Age.
Autocratic, None, -EFFIC,-GROWTH
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +SUPPORT,++MORALE,+GROWTH,---RESEARCH
Barter, None, -INDUSTRY,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,-GROWTH
Survival, None, -RESEARCH,-INDUSTRY
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,-MORALE,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
Post by: Impaler on May 01, 2014, 01:43:02 AM
Note also that Pop Booming is only possible with GA before Future SE choices due in part to that -GROWTH on none future, and Gaians are not able to immediately capture worms due to to the -PLANET from the same source.
Frontier, None, -POLICE, -SUPPORT, -MORALE, +RESEARCH
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --EFFIC, +PROBE
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC, ++GROWTH, ----POLICE, +RESEARCH
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH, +POLICE
Simple, None, -ECONOMY, -EFFIC, -INDUSTRY, +RESEARCH
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, ---SUPPORT, +GROWTH
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY, +SUPPORT
Green, EnvEcon, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, ---GROWTH, +SUPPORT
Survival, None, -MORALE, -GROWTH, -PROBE, +RESEARCH
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --INDUSTRY, +PROBE
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --PROBE, +PLANET
Wealth, IndExt, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, +EFFIC
None, None, -PLANET, -GROWTH, -ECONOMY, +RESEARCH
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ---GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET, +INDUSTRY, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, ---SUPPORT
Post by: Nexii on May 01, 2014, 02:21:29 AM
Maybe another option would be to give the +RESEARCH/base to all factions for an early game boost. May promote ICS a bit but ICS tends to fall off anyways. Could balance that with a Police State nerf.
Post by: Impaler on May 02, 2014, 04:42:39 AM
Post by: Dio on May 03, 2014, 04:43:31 AM
Gaians:
TECH, Ecology, FUNGNUTRIENT, 2, FUNGMINERALS, -2, PSI, 25, TERRAFORM, 0, ENERGY, -100
Peace:
VOTES, 2, TALENT, 4, FUNGENERGY, 2, FUNGNUTRIENT, -2, POPULATION, -2, INTEREST, -5,
Morgan:
ENERGY, 100, INTEREST, 0, POPULATION, 3, COMMERCE, 1, HURRY, 75, TECHCOST, 125,
Univ:
TECH, 2, SHARETECH, 3, TECHCOST, 75, RESEARCH, 1, DRONE, 4, MORALE, -1,
Spartans:
MORALE, 1, ROBUST, EFFIC, UNIT, 11, FREEPROTO, 0, HURRY, 125,
Believers:
FUNGMINERALS, 2, FUNGENERGY, -2, FANATIC, 0, MINDCONTROL, 0, MORALE, 0, RESEARCH, -1,
Hive:
IMMUNITY, ECONOMY, IMPUNITY, Police State, PENALTY, Fundamentalist, FACILITY, 4, INTEREST, 3, COMMERCE, -2,
Post by: Nexii on May 03, 2014, 06:21:15 AM
Univ may need a small boost without the Network Nodes, perhaps TECHCOST down to 60 or so. Drone/4 on top of -1 MORALE is kinda painful. Believers with Morale 0 and Morgan with Interest 0? I assume you meant + bonuses of some type there. Hive looks really solid. Though in a peaceful game he would suffer with the minus Commerce...interesting penalty there.
With a set like that I would probably re-design some of the frontier bonuses/penalties. I'd try to put all factions to -1 in all SEs to start, other than RESEARCH (due to the 5 turns thing).
How about this for a really simple set?
Gaians - IMPUNITY Green and free Biology Labs. Free Centauri Preserve on discovery.
Hive - IMPUNITY Police State and free Recycling Tanks. Free Genejack Factory on discovery.
Morgan - IMPUNITY Free Market and free Energy Banks. Free Perimeter Defense and Tachyon Field on discovery.
University - IMPUNITY Knowledge and free Network Nodes. Free Fusion Lab on discovery.
Believers - IMPUNITY Fundamentalism and free Recreation Commons. Free Hologram Theatre on discovery.
Peacekeepers - IMPUNITY Democratic and free Children's Creches. Free Hab Complex on discovery.
Spartans - IMPUNITY Power and free Command Centers. Free Naval Yard on discovery.
Perhaps a bit boring/plain but I may try that, and yours above. The impunities make them hard to judge.
Edit: Seems facilities can only be given for the entire game. May cause some imbalances, but I'll try it out.
Post by: Impaler on May 04, 2014, 02:56:04 AM
But I was still using the classic Perimeter Defense for Hive, but am reconsidering it, their really isn't anything in Hive ideology that dictates a high priority on Defense, if you really think about it the facility feels like something randomly bolted onto Hive during the balance process. One possibility I've considered for them is the BroodPit (which I renamed "Indoctrination Center"), it's police and probe bonuses seem vary appropriate for a police state, and I've moved it Doc Loyalty already (see how this is all fitting together thematically). Perimeter Defense is now available without a tech prerequisite which helps everyone deal with more aggressive native life.
Meanwhile I've found that free Command Centers for Spartans are problematic, they cost maintenance equal to the reactor technology of the owner, where as other free facilities cost no maintenance, this significantly cuts into the Spartan economy which is already one of the weakest in the game.
Some of your late game free facilities look very interesting as well, I believe I may try these out.
Lastly I've been thinking of a fairly deep redesign of Belivers, I've always found them boring in the sense that they are so narrowly focused on being aggressive dicks, and I've always thought that was the nitch of the Spartans. I want to carve out some kind of strategy which is unique and more intermediary on the builder-momentum axis. I'll keep the core 'good probe/poor research' aspect but I'm looking at GROWTH and a different kind of combat bonus such a PSI bonus rather then Fanatic.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on May 04, 2014, 03:06:45 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 04, 2014, 03:38:10 AM
There's no way to give free facilities that I know of 'upon a certain tech'. Either you get them or you don't.
I never really felt PROBE befitted Miriam, personally. GROWTH I can see (and is something I put on Fundamentalism to a small degree). +INDUSTRY might be more fitting. Then they're kind of similar to Hive though (who IMO should get POLICE/PROBE). PSI perhaps, it would definitely be a remake. Currently their religion is to believe in the Christian God as the higher power - not Planet. Maybe one idea for a remake would be that they see Chiron and god as one. Though this might be a bit too similar to Cult of Planet.
Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses. I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan. Underground = space cramped. At least that's how I see it.
Did you mod perimeter defense to help vs native? That's curious. Recently I've been modding Empath/Trance to be stronger but also cost more. Tending more to harder counter system of units.
Post by: Sigma on May 04, 2014, 08:29:10 PM
Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses. I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan. Underground = space cramped. At least that's how I see it.Giving the Hive a Hab complex restriction throttles their Growth stat, which is one of their key abilities and biggest strengths. Plus, Yang has no problem with stuffing his people into tubes and lockers so it's not as if they need a lot of breathing room. Compared with the Morganites, where every citizen deserves his own penthouse.
Post by: Dio on May 04, 2014, 09:00:32 PM
Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses. I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan. Underground = space cramped. At least that's how I see it.Plus, Yang has no problem with stuffing his people into tubes and lockers so it's not as if they need a lot of breathing room. Compared with the Morganites, where every citizen deserves his own penthouse.
;lol I think that statement is true. I never understood why the peacekeepers got loosened population restrictions.
Post by: Nexii on May 04, 2014, 09:01:21 PM
Post by: Impaler on May 05, 2014, 02:43:21 AM
Yes, well even less insular religions; the Protestant work ethic is a big reason the US became the #1 world economy.
Have to call BS on this one, when people use the term 'Protestant work ethic' it strikes me as thinly veiled self-flattery that Protestants work MORE and/or HARDER then other folks, primarily Catholics, but all other non-Christians as well. Their may be different cultural values about WHY to work but I've never seen any evidence that Protestants are more productive.
The primary factors for the US success were clearly access to an entire Continent of resources, and a cultural and legal climate that encouraged risk taking and advancement of the regular man, with lenient bankruptcy laws being key.
I never really felt PROBE befitted Miriam, personally. GROWTH I can see (and is something I put on Fundamentalism to a small degree). +INDUSTRY might be more fitting. Then they're kind of similar to Hive though (who IMO should get POLICE/PROBE). PSI perhaps, it would definitely be a remake. Currently their religion is to believe in the Christian God as the higher power - not Planet. Maybe one idea for a remake would be that they see Chiron and god as one. Though this might be a bit too similar to Cult of Planet.
The problem with PROBE rating in SMAC is that it combines offensive and defensive aspects, their is no way to make a faction leak information like a sieve AND be good at getting it from others. I think Believers being good at security is logical, but for them to be great infiltrators strikes me as odd, they are not the Data Angels by a long shot. Perhaps just give Believers the Mind Control immunity and take away all the Probe bonuses? Also I've been looking at a Support bonus for Believers, no one else has support bonuses and it could synergize with the GROWTH bonus and help them to field large low tech (out of necessity) 'zerg' armies.
Hive was supposed to be living in underground bunkers, I believe is the reason for perimeter defenses. I think it fits although Hive should have gotten the space penalty not Morgan. Underground = space cramped. At least that's how I see it.I have to agree with Sigma and say that when I hear the word 'Hive' it sure sounds like they are packing em in like Sardines and should getting a pop limit bonus.
Did you mod perimeter defense to help vs native? That's curious. Recently I've been modding Empath/Trance to be stronger but also cost more. Tending more to harder counter system of units.Well it's partly a water-cooler logic thing for me, everyone should be able to defend themselves, it shouldn't require technology to do such a basic human activity. When I'm giving everyone a -1 PLANET and the native PSI bonus at +25% per planet level it seems prudent to let defenses get built a bit faster.
Post by: Nexii on May 05, 2014, 05:04:13 AM
As a faction bonus, I think subversion immunity works fine for Miriam. Generally subvert costs are rather high for non-AI, but its good against the AI. Believers do get +2 SUP by default (+3 in my set with running Fund). Meaning huge swarms of stuff typically - could be formers (FM), traditional troops (Planned), or mind worms (Green).
PLANET at 25% PSI seems very strong. Did you boost Empath/Trance also? FM isn't so good if you can't attack native life at all, at least in my experience. And Perimeters don't help vs PSI, so I'm a bit confused on that part. That's something I'm struggling on balancing. Making FM good but not so good you can just ignore ecodamage without Clean Minerals. And then Green has a huge benefit of native life. At 75% I think mind worms would run over most things. Similar balance issues, the MW rush vs keeping them viable to build by non-exorbitant costs. I suppose delaying that rush via -PLANET helps some (been trying this lately on Survival tier).
Post by: Impaler on May 05, 2014, 07:43:18 AM
I've never lost a base to worms after getting Fusion, as your troops all have double hit-points at that point and HP is hugely determinative in PSI combat. The whole reactor = HP thing is from my perspective the biggest flaw in the Unit Workshop as it cripples native life and lets you steam roll any other faction that your not 3 generations behind on weapons tech. I'm still looking for ways to get rid of the whole HP variance concept entirely.
Post by: Yitzi on May 05, 2014, 02:42:45 PM
+75% would require every single bonus possible before Future Society (Gaians, Green, Manifolds), a real edge case. Most factions are looking at +25% if they run Green as they still have to deal with a -1 PLANET from None Future Society. FM is a -2 PLANET so if a typical faction is taking that they are at -75% vs Native life, I would hope that they might actually lose some units or bases at that point which is my goal, native life should be hell, not a mere nuisance.
I've never lost a base to worms after getting Fusion, as your troops all have double hit-points at that point and HP is hugely determinative in PSI combat. The whole reactor = HP thing is from my perspective the biggest flaw in the Unit Workshop as it cripples native life and lets you steam roll any other faction that your not 3 generations behind on weapons tech. I'm still looking for ways to get rid of the whole HP variance concept entirely.
I seem to remember that PSI combat actually isn't affected by HP.
Post by: Nexii on May 05, 2014, 07:38:15 PM
I did some general tweaking to balance my set. Instead: -1 to all SEs other than RESEARCH to begin (due to the extra turns of 0 research). This encourages you to pick an SE despite them having generally have as much downside as upside. 100 starting energy (so Yang can avoid -3 ECON, by going PS off the bat). +1 energy a base which speeds up the early game and makes SE switching out of Anarchy/Traditional less onerous - and less dependent on pod luck.
PS boosted somewhat - with PROBE how it is right now, it wasn't all that compelling with the SUPPORT gone. A nice boost for sure, but I lessened the downsides. Green got weakened to -3 IND. Green is really powerful with clean minerals taken out. I feel that -GROWTH is needed to balance Green from GA booming, but thematically -GROWTH doesn't really fit Green. In an extreme Green viewpoint it might, I guess: ideology of sustainable population growth unlike Earth. Power got boosted, -GROWTH isn't quite as painful as -INDUSTRY. Take it as Eugenics-type values. Knowledge now results in less trained armies (more academics than soldiers, & free information hurts military operations). Similarly Wealth drives up the cost of military (thinking of army becoming more like mercenary forces) and research (more engineering focus than theoretical). I still feel Wealth is a solid pick (+IND/ECON being arguably the strongest SEs). FM boosted slightly with taking out the -SUPPORT.
Early booming is made harder with -1 GROWTH on the values tier. If you really wanted it to be harder early then put -GROWTH on Future SE, and put in -1 RESEARCH on Survival. But I personally prefer to have booming, as overpowered as it seems. The growth SEs have a lot more downside in this set than before, where Demo+Planned was a super easy way to boom. Now to run Demo+FM it pollutes a lot and you can only pull this off during peace. Alternatively, one of these can be replaced with Wealth for +2 ECON and a more PSYCH based GA boom. Or, Demo+FM+GA with the +2 ECON and ignoring Creches until later in the game.
Anarchy, None, -POLICE,-ECONOMY,-MORALE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+ECONOMY,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, +SUPPORT,++MORALE,+GROWTH,---RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+SUPPORT,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,---INDUSTRY,-GROWTH
Survival, None, -PROBE,-GROWTH,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,--MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,--MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-GROWTH,-EFFIC
Post by: Nexii on June 17, 2014, 03:29:51 AM
Notable changes:
- Police State's +2 POLICE is less valuable late game, but now it's always relevant due to the +PROBE (as I mod such that only Polymorphic Software gives probe morale). Stealing tech is very cheap, and non-PS players have to consider whether it's even worth buying probes.
- Demo no longer gets +1 ECON, gets +1 RESEARCH instead. Weakens the Demo+Wealth pairing. Strengthens Demo+FM a bit.
- Free Market instead goes back to +2 ECON, it wasn't that useful later game otherwise. Increased penalty to -2 SUP (less relevant later game).
- Planned gets +1 GROW, thus booming requires GA for all factions (and all factions can still boom).
- Green's penalties much lessened, but only +2 PLANET. I play with 0 CMs and lowered native cost life, so it has its niche (exploring, or to contain native life after going FM for too long).
- Knowledge now has -1 INDUSTRY, I feel this fits more than negative MORALE. The pursuit of knowledge above material things (and vice versa for Wealth)
- Wealth no longer gets -2 SUP, it was a bit weak (and especially with no more Demo+Wealth pairing for +2 ECON).
- Eudaimonia wasn't very compelling against Cyber or Thought Control before. Especially with two SPs that slant things heavily (Cloning Vats, Network Backbone) to Cyber and TC as is. Therefore I boosted Eud and weakened Cyber, TC a bit.
Anarchy, None, -POLICE,-ECONOMY,-MORALE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+RESEARCH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,---RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -PROBE,-GROWTH,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-INDUSTRY
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--RESEARCH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,+PLANET,----MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,--GROWTH,-EFFIC
If anyone wants to try this out and let me know what they think, I appreciate any feedback.
I feel like Gaia probably suffers the most early. -2 POLICE and no early capture really hurts. However their starting MORALE is no worse than others now, and their EFFIC is much more prized later in the game. Fund+Green rush to pod pop may be very good. I play with 3:2 PSI on air and sea which helps for popping, so I'll have to try this out.
I feel Hive also gets off to a very slow start, but the IND from Planned+Wealth is very strong. I guess it's balanced though, they get out commerced hard in peace.
Believers, aren't that scary early on. Once they get Fund/FM/Power they can be terrifying though.
Peacekeepers, I don't think these changes have too much impact on them. Democracy is more beneficial, they can run Demo+Planned easier than others.
Spartans are even scarier in the early game. If they rush to Fund, they get +3 MORALE when you might be sitting on -1 still (if you go economics before politics). Police State is very efficient (as it always was), and -1 EFFIC isn't near as crippling as -2 EFFIC was before. PS/Power is still quite inefficient, but you can produce a lot more military now.
Morganites can still run Wealth for +2 ECON, though research gets hampered a lot. Less of a pushover than Gaia or University in a war though, I feel (no Fund aversion or -1 MORALE).
University I feel has to run PS early with the Drone fixes in (as they should have to). Counters a lot of their -PROBE although you'd probably lose most of it with Knowledge anyways.
Post by: Nexii on August 31, 2014, 04:19:02 PM
- Fund got nerfed, -5 RESEARCH. It's still very strong I feel, both early and late for war. Elite is really strong how I mod with flat unit costing.
- No changes to economic SEs, but I did boost Planet to +15% per in combat, thus making Green better and FM a bit weaker
- Power weakened a bit (-1 IND hurts more than -1 GROW, imo)
- Knowledge increased a bit (-1 MORALE isn't as bad as -1 IND, imo)
- Wealth now gets -2 GROWTH. I do mod Cloning Vats to be later game, notably, so this is a significant penalty.
- Slight boosts to TC/Eud
Anarchy, None, -POLICE,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+RESEARCH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,+GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -MORALE,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--GROWTH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, +++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,+PLANET,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-GROWTH
Overall I feel that Politics SE and Economic SE have more impact than Values SEs or Future SEs in this set. I guess that's okay, those techs come mid and late game anyways.
I kind of feel Police State is a bit weak, if anyone wants to test for variety's sake feel free. I think it tends to be much better for certain factions - mostly University, Hive, and Gaians. Possibly Spartans too, once they get Power value.
Post by: JarlWolf on September 02, 2014, 10:39:22 AM
Post by: Nexii on September 02, 2014, 01:34:42 PM
+3 PROBE from PS will max out anyone but University. Of course I do agree, Believers might need PS more to go on a tech steal rampage.
I also changed -POLICE in Anarchy to -GROWTH, as -2 POLICE was quite problematic for Gaians.
Post by: Nexii on October 05, 2014, 01:45:17 AM
- Fundamentalism weakened to +1 SUP
- Planned increased to +2 GROWTH
- Green penalty lessened to -1 IND
- Power changed to +2 SUP and -2 IND (closer to original)
- Eudaimonic lessened to +2 GROWTH
This brings back the Demo/Planned 'easy' boom although it is much more difficult to drone control with low police and energy. Demo/FM with luxury based GA is still preferred. And booming in general requires a Creche, and Knowledge or Power to get out of Survival.
#SOCIO
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
ECONOMY, EFFIC, SUPPORT, TALENT, MORALE, POLICE, GROWTH, PLANET, PROBE, INDUSTRY, RESEARCH
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Anarchy, None, -MORALE,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+RESEARCH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET,+EFFIC,-INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -GROWTH,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-MORALE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,--GROWTH
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,+PLANET,---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-GROWTH
Post by: vonbach on February 05, 2015, 12:54:48 PM
Police State. ++Probe or support ++Police -Effic(because it makes sense and I like playing something other than Democracy sometimes.)
Democracy +Effic ++Growth --Support (Because Democracy as it was is OP)
Fundamentalism is the biggest change and the one I'm always fiddling with.
+Morale +Growth + Effic -Probe (I might try ++Growth +Morale + Probe --Support or Effic)
Free Market ++Econ ---Planet
Planned ++Growth +Industry -Effic.
Green ++Effic ++Planet --Growth -Industry
Power ++Support ++Morale -Planet (I felt -Industry was too crippling)
Knowledge unchanged
Wealth +Industry +Economy ---Police.
I moved grav tanks down to Planetary Economics simply because I wanted to see more of them.
Post by: Yitzi on February 08, 2015, 01:07:10 AM
Police State in this format would actually work well with the Believers as they get the probe bonus... the -5 Research seems horribly definitive of making the faction that chooses it (especially believers) have to be war mongers...
Or just probe+industry...I think what really encourages the Believers to be warmongers is that their bonuses and preferred social ideology work so well with it.
Post by: Nexii on February 08, 2015, 09:38:33 PM
But yea I'd say Probe isnt all that useful for war in general. Morale, Industry, and Support matter a lot more. Which is sort of something I don't like about Power (-Industry really runs counter to that). So I still have to rebalance my set some, I feel. I had -GROWTH or -ECONOMY as possibilities.
Believers I found got a pretty good boost with free armor modding. Being able to punch through troops with their +25% attack becomes a lot more relevant. Though -2 RES is really painful early when all weapons/armor cost the same. I made Probes a bit earlier (Info Networks) to compensate somewhat. Believers can definitely expand well, +2 SUP is very helpful as a builder.
This is what I've been playing with lately, anyways. I think it makes for some tougher decisions at each tier.
Anarchy, None, -MORALE,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+RESEARCH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -GROWTH,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,--GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-SUPPORT,-MORALE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-GROWTH
Post by: Yitzi on February 09, 2015, 04:08:12 PM
Fundamentalism is meant to be the 'war' SE isn't it? I guess that's debatable too. I had Police State more as for spying/control, than necessarily being aggressive.
I see it as Democracy for peacetime, Fundamentalism for war against a fairly well-matched enemy, and Police State for conquering someone substantially weaker than you.
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But yea I'd say Probe isnt all that useful for war in general.
If, however, it were possible to subvert a stack of more than one unit, then I think it would be a lot more useful, since subversion cost depends a lot on distance from the owner's HQ.
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Morale, Industry, and Support matter a lot more. Which is sort of something I don't like about Power (-Industry really runs counter to that).
True; I think the idea is that the SUPPORT is supposed to more than make up for it, but SUPPORT becomes a lot less significant later in the game. If, however, you play with the mod that more expensive units cost more support and also change unit cost so that the support for a single unit remains around (or more than) 10% of a typical base's output, then it should become more viable.
Post by: Nexii on February 09, 2015, 07:43:27 PM
SUPPORT stays relevant also with flat unit costs since the ratio stays the same. I think as well, Clean does eat up a slot which matters more when unit abilities are costed at 0. All this can be tweaked though.
The only issue I tend to have is Planned/Green switching for SP completion. Do you have any timeline on when minerals may scale as a % when changing IND? It's not the biggest exploit but I still consider it one.
Post by: Yitzi on February 09, 2015, 08:26:14 PM
Ok then I think I have the top three fairly well balanced. Democracy is really hard to run during war. Definitely more fixes to PROBE would make it more relevant, its probably the least important SE since fixes to others. PS maybe not so much for the conquering itself as in the time after to control the population. I think PS also for large empires (since once you get a lot of B-drones, facilities and luxuries get very costly).
SUPPORT stays relevant also with flat unit costs since the ratio stays the same. I think as well, Clean does eat up a slot which matters more when unit abilities are costed at 0.
The thing is, with flat unit costs, unit support costs won't increase, so past a certain point, the extra 2 free supported units simply don't represent such a significant part of your production.
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The only issue I tend to have is Planned/Green switching for SP completion. Do you have any timeline on when minerals may scale as a % when changing IND? It's not the biggest exploit but I still consider it one.
Probably a few patches down the line, unless it's nominated and voted on before that; I've had a lot going on lately, which is why the current patch is taking a while. (It's an important one, though, as it's going to allow SMAX to be played as if it were SMAC.)
Post by: Nexii on February 20, 2015, 06:51:38 PM
Post by: Yitzi on February 22, 2015, 01:13:46 AM
That's true, and as much as a problem with SUP in general as with scaling up costs. Later game you could argue that between -3 SUP and +2 SUP isn't much difference. There's other issues there too, like that a lot of more expensive units aren't worth it (expensive terraformers, military units versus native life).
I don't think that's such an issue if you play with multibuild.
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However I found that when playing with higher ecodamages (0 clean, 1000 ecodamage div, and 4 mineral divisor, rest defaults), it's very difficult to have high M production now anyways.
Really? If you go Green, it should be fairly manageable, I think. Even 30 minerals (quite a bit more than is safe with unmodded ecodamage unless you have quite a number of ecological facilities) contributes only 1.5 ecodamage, assuming Green, Transcend, standard native life, no perihilion, 40 techs, and a centauri preserve. That should be fairly manageable (at least if you set global warming frequency low enough to avoid problems there).
Of course, a mineral-heavy strategy with Free Market is going to be begging for trouble...
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Very difficult to go mass forest. Until midgame most bases will be 10 minerals or less, so SUP also can put an overall limiter on your army size in addition to just the ongoing costs. I mod a lot else too, cheaper earlier facilities, lower FOP in general especially advanced terraforming. It often felt like beelines to advanced terraforming, unlocks of caps, and weather paradigm were too mandatory. Also I like a game that isn't quite so former/crawler micro heavy. Granted I still am testing a lot of things...even relatively balancing the SEs is tricky. A small increase or decrease to an SE can make it useless or mandatory also.
Ok...I actually feel like advanced terraforming doesn't need to be nerfed so heavily, as it comes with a fairly heavy cost in terms of formers required. Of course, FOP booster techs are very important, but so are production/energy multipliers, more advanced weaponry/armor/chasses, most special abilities, secret projects, etc.
Still, if you come up with a mod that you think is just what's needed but isn't possible, feel free to suggest it; if I agree with your assessment, I'll probably even fast-track it.
Post by: Nexii on February 25, 2015, 01:35:17 AM
I didn't want the game to be about making more than 2-3 formers a base mainly because of Weather Paradigm. Since it's +50% forming rate, at higher former count it's just too crucial for something mostly based on early game luck. Granted, you can just increase WP cost and I do a bit.
I should clarify: I think FOP scaling up is fine and all, and actually preferable with a non-linear tech curve. I just think less of it should be necessarily tied to making former swarms. I'd rather see more FOP gains tied to facilities. Mainly to smooth out solar/borehole/mines. Forest and sea have this already. The other benefit is that it might encourage some more production specialization. The problem I find is that is most advanced facilities actually give less benefit than cheaper early ones, because they add a similar multiplier on the base production. Percentage wise they actually give even less marginal benefit. I guess that might be difficult though as facility modding was understood to be difficult. Even tying increases to techs would be really good, like the cap unlocks.
Post by: Yitzi on February 25, 2015, 02:02:50 AM
Yea I just didn't want Green to be the sole viable SE option. By default FM pollutes 6x the rate so pretty much any solar/echelon setup will pollute the same as a Green forest/borehole.
The idea, I think, is that if you want to go heavy on minerals, Green is your best option, but FM is still better for energy-focused play...and Planned is great for growth.
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I didn't want the game to be about making more than 2-3 formers a base mainly because of Weather Paradigm. Since it's +50% forming rate, at higher former count it's just too crucial for something mostly based on early game luck. Granted, you can just increase WP cost and I do a bit.
Yes, I think that increasing project costs across the board is probably a good idea.
But yes...now that you mention it, the WP seems to be too powerful when combined with high-end terraforming...perhaps if it only granted a boost to basic terraforming, i.e. that which is available at the start of the game?
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I should clarify: I think FOP scaling up is fine and all, and actually preferable with a non-linear tech curve. I just think less of it should be necessarily tied to making former swarms. I'd rather see more FOP gains tied to facilities. Mainly to smooth out solar/borehole/mines. Forest and sea have this already. The other benefit is that it might encourage some more production specialization. The problem I find is that is most advanced facilities actually give less benefit than cheaper early ones, because they add a similar multiplier on the base production. Percentage wise they actually give even less marginal benefit. I guess that might be difficult though as facility modding was understood to be difficult. Even tying increases to techs would be really good, like the cap unlocks.
Actually, facility modding would not be that difficult...however, the fact that advanced facilities give less benefit than cheaper ones is probably good, as it means that the order of development in a base will tend to be roughly the same order as development in the tech tree.
As for not needing a lot of former use...I think that's what forests and (somewhat later in the game) fungus are meant to be used for. But of course the approach that doesn't need formers needs to give less than the one that does, or else everybody'd use it.
Although the option of a low-former low-mineral terraforming pattern does have some appeal...I'll have to think about it.
Post by: vonbach on February 25, 2015, 02:00:12 PM
Police State ++Police ++Support -Effic
Democracy ++Effic ++Growth --Police
Fundamentalism +Morale ++Growth +Support -Effic (wanted this to be a middle road alternative to the other two)
Free market ++Economy ---Planet
Planned ++Growth +Industry -Effic
Green ++Planet ++Effic --Growth
Power ++Morale ++Support ++Probe --Industry (placed +probe here because it was the only place that made real sense)
Knowledge ++Effic ++Knowledge --Probe
Wealth +Economy +Industry ---Police
Moved the grav tanks down the tech tree just so i could see them more.
I upped the value of the mine squares nutrient output like someone suggested and
it certainly seems to help the AI.
What does everyone think.
Post by: Nexii on February 27, 2015, 04:11:14 PM
I've found with higher ecodamage modding, the -SUP on FM was harsh, and Green was a bit too good. Granted I play with cheap MWs and you can use the free maintenance in fungus to your advantage a lot. That and faster terraforming, the -SUP isn't quite as big a deal to go advanced terraforming with Green.
This is what I have lately. Cyber got bonuses/penalty similar to CyCon. Demo went back to its +2 EFFIC, made Knowledge more focused to research (+3). The later SEs do give less, but a lot of the time they help you max out a SE category which is powerful.
Anarchy, None, -MORALE,-PROBE
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-SUPPORT
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT
Survival, None, -GROWTH,-PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,--GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY,-MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-SUPPORT
Post by: vonbach on February 28, 2015, 10:20:31 PM
choices namely Miriam. I knew that all the aggressive AI's would pick power anyway so it seemed a natural place to put it.
Post by: Yitzi on March 01, 2015, 12:45:20 AM
Of course, then you might have to adjust the divisors to compensate...I'm also planning, in the next patch, to give the ability to have ecodamage not increase directly with tech (though it'd still increase with minerals and terraforming which tends to increase with tech)...that would reduce the "Planet rising" late-game sense you get, though, so I also plan to give the ability to change the worms-per-pop formula to help give that sense that way instead.
Post by: Nexii on March 01, 2015, 05:11:00 PM
Do you think certain terraforming options should be favored by certain SEs (like Fungus/Green)? Maybe forest can be mineral centric (1N/3M/0E) and thermal boreholes more energy centric (0N/0M/12E)? When I think of Free Market I tend to think of boreholes like the Morgan scenario. However with ecodamage fixed, an FM player wouldn't be able to run boreholes. Similarly I think a Green player should favor Forests. Planned I guess would be in between, probably more a mix or favoring nutrients. I tend to think of it as FM - energy, Planned - nutrients, Green - minerals.
Post by: Yitzi on March 01, 2015, 10:18:07 PM
I tend to think of it as FM - energy, Planned - nutrients, Green - minerals.
This is actually the feel I was aiming to enable with the ecodamage modding options.
Post by: Nexii on March 13, 2015, 07:06:29 PM
I went with what you said and it feels a bit more 'right' - default multiplier of 6; but putting the minimum multiplier to 3 rather than 4 - as the SE descriptions tend to hint that +3 PLANET should be superior to +2 PLANET for ecological benefit. Ecodamage divisor I just doubled correspondingly to 2000, which feels about right with 0 clean minerals and everything else default. Would be interested in knowing other's play experiences relating to ecodamages though. Personally I think the bigger swarms by fungal pop count works pretty good as a mechanic. Then it's more like number of minor atrocities against Planet. You can choose whether it's worth running FM a lot as eventually large Locust swarms will hit you. Once that happens, you can't mop them up easy like mind worms.
I haven't changed too much lately other than lessening a few default penalties. There doesn't need to be big default penalties to incentivize taking an SE. Wealth I'm using less at -3 MORALE but then again, its benefits are very strong just on its own right. If you can start a Golden Age, Wealth gives +2 ECON for +1 E/sq. Demo+Planned can be used to boom early with Creche, but early game Demo is hard to control for Drones.
Anarchy, None, -EFFIC
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,-EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,---ECONOMY,-EFFIC
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT
Survival, None, -PLANET
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC,--GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY,-MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-SUPPORT
And for terraforming, I think I'll put in a few votes next time for solar&mine modding. These two scale kind of poorly. I tried weakening advanced terraforming but that tended to slow down the game too much on the whole. Maybe giving Solar/Mines a boost at a certain tech like EcoEng and/or EcoEng2 would be okay. 1/3/0 forests and 0/0/9 borehole seem about right, and lended to some variety in base types. A minor bug I noted is that the AI can construct Sensor Arrays without the requisite tech. Have to test this more but I suspect it may be able to build any improvements without the tech.
Post by: Yitzi on March 13, 2015, 10:28:09 PM
One oddity I've noted (on the FM vs Green topic) is that ecodamage can actually be good with global warming off. Especially with modding things back to just SMAC native life. Planetpearls are massive energy income. Though on the other hand, polluting a lot tends to get formers killed, and re-terraforming land is costly. Getting those planetpearls can be crucial to replace losses.
Interesting point...
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I went with what you said and it feels a bit more 'right' - default multiplier of 6; but putting the minimum multiplier to 3 rather than 4 - as the SE descriptions tend to hint that +3 PLANET should be superior to +2 PLANET for ecological benefit.
You could even put the minimum to 0 for no ecodamage at +6 PLANET, though only ;cha; can achieve that without the Manifold Nexus, and only ;deidre; and ;caretake; additionally with it, and in any case it's only late-game. (If you mod Cybernetic down to +1 PLANET, then it requires ;cha; late-game with the Manifold Nexus.)
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Personally I think the bigger swarms by fungal pop count works pretty good as a mechanic. Then it's more like number of minor atrocities against Planet. You can choose whether it's worth running FM a lot as eventually large Locust swarms will hit you. Once that happens, you can't mop them up easy like mind worms.
Of course, the alternative would be to have it depend not on the number of pops but rather on the actual ecodamage value...
Post by: Nexii on March 14, 2015, 05:04:34 AM
Coincidentally I recently made a game as Cult of Planet, for the first time in months. They're certainly not a joke faction anymore. I stomped over the AI pretty quick with +6 Planet (Green, Nexus). Lately I've been modding with 50% intrinsic base defense (IMO a base should be at least as good as rocky/fungal), and roads as 1/5 move speed cost. Oddly fungus counts as 'roads' for worms, which makes them pretty strong in fungal areas at that speed.
In fact I'd say all the factions are a lot closer in power with my SE set. University and CyCon were the 'best' before but Fundamentalism aversion is a big downside. If you take booming out I feel it makes Hive well above the others; with booming back they're more in line. Believers I feel might be the weakest, at least very much so early they can die before getting weapon/armor techs. I put probes to InfNet tech, this helps them some. Also some may be playstyle, I feel like maybe forgoing research entirely and just stealing tech alone is better.
Post by: Yitzi on March 15, 2015, 12:29:42 PM
Yea, actual ecodamage values would work for pop intensity too. Though it seems like chance to get a pop also goes up with higher ecodamage. So it's sort of a double-effect.
Definitely. But having it go up with number of pops is also a double-effect, just one more spread out over time but with less ability to reduce one of the effects.
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Unless perhaps the chance to for a base to pop was changed to be a flat percentage? Or maybe capped at a certain percentage. I'm thinking that if you make ecodamages go arbitrarily high (100+) then what happens is that bases will be popping every turn.
Hmm...a max pop percentage could be done, although the way I see it if you're hitting 100% pre-VoP then you should probably be overrun in short order anyway.
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In fact I'd say all the factions are a lot closer in power with my SE set. University and CyCon were the 'best' before but Fundamentalism aversion is a big downside.
I think drone and probe changes (drone can be done, probe not yet) would also help with depowering ;zak;, and changing ;aki; to -2 GROWTH and removing booms (so she can't just boom for a short period to hit the hab limit but has to endure the penalty for the whole game) and maybe increasing hab limits should do it for her.
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If you take booming out I feel it makes Hive well above the others; with booming back they're more in line.
That is an issue, although I suspect that it may be better to use some other method to keep ;yang; in line (perhaps greater penalties for -ECON?)
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Believers I feel might be the weakest, at least very much so early they can die before getting weapon/armor techs. I put probes to InfNet tech, this helps them some. Also some may be playstyle, I feel like maybe forgoing research entirely and just stealing tech alone is better.
Could be...although part of it depends on map size and how soon they encounter others. Also, increasing the value of FANATIC will of course help them.
Post by: Nexii on March 16, 2015, 10:09:07 PM
Negative Commerce rating at -ECON as an option would probably make the most sense, since +ECON gives positive Commerce rating. I think I'd prefer that so that -ECON hurts late game and not just a bit early on.
I'm not as convinced Aki is overpowered nor University (with Drone fixes) at least with booming in. Aki and Yang have a hard time booming which was meant as their balancing factor. University just has drone problems galore - having to be Police State does slow them down. I personally favor booming but having it be a bit harder than it is by default. You have to invest a lot (condensor, borehole tech, Creche, plus psych facilities) to typically pull it off on Transcend. That's a lot of mineral investment that is dumped in versus say what you could get in army size. With booming out I found it became much better to ICS with Police State than to go for larger bases. I think you would also have to make smaller bases grow slower somehow, such as -1N to tanks; that might work better if you like really long games of say 500-1000 turns.
Good point on Believers - FANATIC is quite strong despite their bad SEs. I think if their attack bonus worked for PSI combat they'd be fine. I suspect that perhaps that's why they had -PLANET originally to balance that, but it's debatable what was intended.
Post by: Yitzi on March 17, 2015, 02:51:19 AM
I suppose that yes if pop intensity doesn't go up by count and only by ecodamage, then it would be fine. Pop count does have its flaws like that later game a small base with 1 ecodamage might produce large boils.
True, or the fact that it makes the danger of native life scale too fast with empire size.
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I also wondered whether there should instead be an option for native life to not take 100% collateral damage also. Later game it's a bit crazy to get 500-1000 Planetpearls per stack.
Well, you could always reduce the planetpearls multiplier...but yes, having less than 100% collateral damage might make sense.
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But oddly this rule only seems to apply for Mind Worms, and not Locusts.
I think air units are always immune to collateral damage, just like they can't do it.
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Negative Commerce rating at -ECON as an option would probably make the most sense, since +ECON gives positive Commerce rating. I think I'd prefer that so that -ECON hurts late game and not just a bit early on.
Makes sense, and should be doable.
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I'm not as convinced Aki is overpowered nor University (with Drone fixes) at least with booming in. Aki and Yang have a hard time booming which was meant as their balancing factor.
I'm not so sure it was, seeing as the designers don't seem to have understood how powerful booming would be in the first place...and in any case, I think booming causes more problems than it could possibly solve, by making nutrients largely irrelevant once you have at least +2.
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University just has drone problems galore - having to be Police State does slow them down. I personally favor booming but having it be a bit harder than it is by default. You have to invest a lot (condensor, borehole tech, Creche, plus psych facilities) to typically pull it off on Transcend. That's a lot of mineral investment that is dumped in versus say what you could get in army size.
Wait, how do boreholes help with booming? Or is that just for energy to go to psych because you need a golden age to boom?
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With booming out I found it became much better to ICS with Police State than to go for larger bases.
Keep in mind, though, that ICS (which essentially means no multiplier facilities) plus Police State pretty much kills your energy production, as compared to using that same land with a more spread-out layout. Also, when you disabled booming you did it in a way where the maximum GROWTH was +5 for a 50% reduction; if you can (unless you're Yang, Morgan, Aki, or Marr) get a 60% reduction without a golden age and 80% with one...well, that'll mean things grow a lot faster, especially if you go for nutrient-heavy terraforming (and remember, one of the main reasons I dislike pre-late-game booming is that it means you don't have much use for nutrient-heavy terraforming).
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Good point on Believers - FANATIC is quite strong despite their bad SEs. I think if their attack bonus worked for PSI combat they'd be fine. I suspect that perhaps that's why they had -PLANET originally to balance that, but it's debatable what was intended.
Making FANATIC work for psi combat is definitely doable...and even makes sense.
Post by: vonbach on March 23, 2015, 06:13:01 AM
Post by: Nexii on March 24, 2015, 12:02:13 PM
I find that in most games, booming really doesn't get to be used until the mid game (meaning size range 7-14, or 7-20 if you mod up). Early game you won't have the N production or drone facilities for it to be worth it anyways. Most of that extra population would be stuck as Doctors at best.
The problem is that with hard booming out, I think ICS-PS tends to dominate for growth rate. Smaller bases grow faster due to +3N from the base tile. On the other hand, I do agree about the +2N problem and all the micromanaging it adds...it's similar to managing drone riots where a new citizen causes a riot. I wonder if recycle tanks at +0/+0/+3 and +2N per farm upgrade / 0N condensors would work better with hard booming out. Been trying that out in a few games recently, it's different for sure.
I suppose my other concern was that certain default combinations like PS/Planned were never viable other than as Yang, since -4 EFFIC is so detrimental to E production. Funny you mention that vonbach too, I was also considering giving PS -2 GROWTH to represent purges and oppression. Not sure PS would be that corrupt, in fact most Police States are strict against corruption.
something like this maybe? (swapping PS/Power penalties):
Anarchy, None, -GROWTH
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,++GROWTH,-EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT
Survival, None, None
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,--EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,+INDUSTRY,---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,-INDUSTRY,-MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,-SUPPORT
Post by: Yitzi on March 24, 2015, 02:22:48 PM
I find that in most games, booming really doesn't get to be used until the mid game (meaning size range 7-14, or 7-20 if you mod up). Early game you won't have the N production or drone facilities for it to be worth it anyways. Most of that extra population would be stuck as Doctors at best.
True, but when it does become available it still causes problems.
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The problem is that with hard booming out, I think ICS-PS tends to dominate for growth rate. Smaller bases grow faster due to +3N from the base tile.
I think that you do get more population with such a strategy (at least until enrichers come out), but on the other hand you get worse energy production (since building multiplier facilities in each one becomes unfeasible, and of course PS cuts into energy), plus bureaucracy is a significant problem (note that with drone rules mod 8, having small bases no longer places a hard cap on how much drone control you can need due to bureaucracy). It's a good strategy if you're aiming for a momentum game, but is far from the only viable approach.
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On the other hand, I do agree about the +2N problem and all the micromanaging it adds...it's similar to managing drone riots where a new citizen causes a riot.
It's not just the micromanaging; it means there's substantially less space to offer trade-offs between different types of terraforming.
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I wonder if recycle tanks at +0/+0/+3 and +2N per farm upgrade / 0N condensors would work better with hard booming out. Been trying that out in a few games recently, it's different for sure.
It's an idea, though I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that level of growth...
Post by: Nexii on March 24, 2015, 06:12:58 PM
Let's take a varied base example with defaults and 2N farms:
A size 8 base with 1 condenser, 2 boreholes, 4 rainy farms, 1 tree farm forest (ok, I picked these so the latter would equal 3N/sq).
Default - 3+4+(4*3)+2 = 21N or 2.625 N/sq
2N farms - 2+4+(4*4)+2 = 24N or 3N/sq
at 0.625 positive N, that's 18 turns to pop (90/5)
at 1N/sq it's 12 turns to pop (90/8)
12 is probably about more right as a base, if you're playing with size 8 going to 20 until Hab Dome. You're typically looking at about 100 turns from mid to late (post Hab-Dome) so that about works out. I do agree that 1 turn per pop is a bit too much. 12 can be knocked down to around 5-8 with SEs and Creche, maybe low as 3 turns to pop if you go all out.
The other thing about the 7-20 pop range is there's few facilities that knock off drones. To maintain larger bases it takes constant PSY allocation. Whereas PS can run 50/50 and be fine. It's more an issue with how fast PS can expand horizontally. For that reason I feel like -2 GROWTH would hamper PS a lot more than -2 EFFIC. EFFIC does hurt but can be gamed around (E production in the core, specialists). And EFFIC's B-drones don't matter to PS even at 100 bases, since you can control the first 9 population with 3 police units. (6 earlier game, 12 late with SAC).
Post by: Yitzi on March 24, 2015, 07:17:04 PM
Well it's really only +1N per farm beyond the first - so more of a midgame boost to offset no booming than early.
A midgame capability of 2N/pop surplus still seems like you'll hit hab limits quite quickly, though.
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Since not all your tiles are going to be farms, it was difficult to get even 3N/sq in the midgame.
Ah, good point. So perhaps 2N/farm would work, based on the assumption that you're not having almost all farms.
Quote
Let's take a varied base example with defaults and 2N farms:
A size 8 base with 1 condenser, 2 boreholes, 4 rainy farms, 1 tree farm forest (ok, I picked these so the latter would equal 3N/sq).
Default - 3+4+(4*3)+2 = 21N or 2.625 N/sq
2N farms - 2+4+(4*4)+2 = 24N or 3N/sq
at 0.625 positive N, that's 18 turns to pop (90/5)
at 1N/sq it's 12 turns to pop (90/8)
Of course, having 25% of your worked squares be boreholes seems like a fairly large amount...with that setup and 0/0/3 tanks, your size 8 base is producing 15-20 minerals per turn (depending on whether the farm squares are flat or rolling) and at least 21 energy (possibly much more with mirrors and raising terrain). On the other hand, you've put some serious former-turns into those boreholes...
Quote
12 can be knocked down to around 5-8 with SEs and Creche, maybe low as 3 turns to pop if you go all out.
Yeah, that's the thing...12 turns makes sense, but a creche (which you presumably have) knocks it down to 9, which is a bit quick for a not-growth-focused SE setting. And if the research formula is fixed to actually be quadratic, it'll also take more time to reach the late game.
Of course, the solution to that may simply be to increase the base number of nutrients per row.
Quote
The other thing about the 7-20 pop range is there's few facilities that knock off drones. To maintain larger bases it takes constant PSY allocation. Whereas PS can run 50/50 and be fine.
Well, until bureaucracy becomes prohibitive. But yes, maintaining larger bases does require either psych allocation or specialists (which are more targetable, but less efficient).
Quote
It's more an issue with how fast PS can expand horizontally. For that reason I feel like -2 GROWTH would hamper PS a lot more than -2 EFFIC. EFFIC does hurt but can be gamed around (E production in the core, specialists).
True. It would also be less problematic during a conquest drive, which is probably what PS is designed for.
Quote
And EFFIC's B-drones don't matter to PS even at 100 bases, since you can control the first 9 population with 3 police units. (6 earlier game, 12 late with SAC).
Firstly, you only get the "police effect doubled" bonus at +3 POLICE, and PS only gives +2. SAC also counts as one of your 3 (or however many) police units, so you're limited there as well.
Furthermore, it is inaccurate with drone rule 8 active, since at 100 bases on a normal map on Transcend, you're getting 16-17 drones per base. Because every citizen after the first is already a drone, that means that you've got a minimum of 15+POP drones-equivalent; even playing as ;santi; with PS for +3 POLICE, you therefore need 6 units of drone control plus one for each point of population above 9. (One of the effects of drone rule 8 is that if bureaucracy would put you at more than twice your population in drones, the rest become "phantom drones" and still need to be dealt with.) If not ;santi; and without a non-PS source of +POLICE, it's even worse.
Post by: Nexii on March 24, 2015, 08:38:00 PM
Well it was a sample base but yes, with 0/6/6 borehole you want as many as possible. 25% boreholes might even be conservative but a better player than me could say. I have been trying out 0/0/9 which admittedly is also very powerful.
Yea I meant 9 pop control with Ascetic Virtues or Brood Pit, the former is a lot earlier of course. Wasn't aware that SAC counted against the 3 limit, that's interesting to know. Also it seems to count as a free non-police unit.
If PS is at -2 GROWTH though a Creche would only put you back to 12 turn per pop or so. You'd be at around 15 turns per pop without a Creche. Putting tanks to -1N actually slows down the early game a fair amount, since you're capped at 2N per farm anyways. Granted with a better tech curve, 0/0/3 tanks might be a bit fast early. But I find them pretty good as they are.
I guess my caution is that the game shouldn't be slowed down too much. There's only 400 turns on Transcend. So early game = 100, mid game = 100, late game = 100. Allow 100 more for an especially aggressive game. Early I would say up to Hab Complex, Mid is up from Hab Complex to Hab Domes, and Late is post-Hab Domes. A lot of bug/exploit fixes do make the game slower. So I guess either facility & SP costs can be reduced, or the overall tech curve could be a little faster.
Post by: Yitzi on March 25, 2015, 02:26:10 PM
Wait are you sure? I'm seeing that with drone flag 8 on that the first drone can never be a superdrone
Really? What does the Psych window show? From what I saw, it seemed that the first drone was becoming a superdrone, but then being quashed by police.
Quote
and B-drones don't become phantom drones.
Phantom drones are invisible, hence the name.
Quote
I went up to 60 bases as a test and a size 3 base could be controlled by a single police unit at +3 POLICE. On Transcend, normal sized map, you're saying that should be an additional 10 drones (60 bases / 6 as EFFIC 0 cap)?
Yes, there should be...do you have a savegame of this, so I can check?
Quote
Well it was a sample base but yes, with 0/6/6 borehole you want as many as possible. 25% boreholes might even be conservative but a better player than me could say. I have been trying out 0/0/9 which admittedly is also very powerful.
On the other hand, getting that many boreholes is fairly expensive, and until later in the game (especially if you mod Planetary Economics to a bit later on) there's the ecodamage as well...and later in the game, the fact that you lose out on not only farm/solar or farm/mine but also enrichers makes it less appealing.
Although now that I think of it, 6 nutrients late-game is still a lot, especially when combined with transcendi. Yes, it's the same as condensers unmodded, but that's also extremely high. (The "enabling condenser+solars" idea is designed to work with 0-nutrient condensers.)
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Wasn't aware that SAC counted against the 3 limit, that's interesting to know. Also it seems to count as a free non-police unit.
Indeed; I actually fixed a bug where it would even displace police units.
Quote
If PS is at -2 GROWTH though a Creche would only put you back to 12 turn per pop or so.
True, if you run PS.
Quote
You'd be at around 15 turns per pop without a Creche. Putting tanks to -1N actually slows down the early game a fair amount, since you're capped at 2N per farm anyways. Granted with a better tech curve, 0/0/3 tanks might be a bit fast early. But I find them pretty good as they are.
Actually, a better tech curve would probably be around the same (maybe somewhat more difficulty-dependent) early, and be slowed down more later.
Quote
I guess my caution is that the game shouldn't be slowed down too much. There's only 400 turns on Transcend. So early game = 100, mid game = 100, late game = 100. Allow 100 more for an especially aggressive game. Early I would say up to Hab Complex, Mid is up from Hab Complex to Hab Domes, and Late is post-Hab Domes. A lot of bug/exploit fixes do make the game slower. So I guess either facility & SP costs can be reduced, or the overall tech curve could be a little faster.
Fortunately, all those things (number of turns, costs, and overall tech speed) are moddable.
Post by: Nexii on March 25, 2015, 07:44:36 PM
Yea agree 6N is high, but I play with raising off so really it's trading off 2N for ~2-2.5E. Farm+solar needs to exceed forests for FOP due to the higher former times. The other thing is that until Hab Domes all that N is wasted if you go full farm/solar. A mix should be best I think
Post by: Yitzi on March 25, 2015, 08:38:33 PM
Here's a sample save. Using drones rule 31. Psych Window shows 0 for "Morgan Industries" base
Ok, I'll take a look.
Quote
Yea agree 6N is high, but I play with raising off so really it's trading off 2N for ~2-2.5E.
With satellites and transcendi, that's a ridiculously overpowered trade.
Quote
The other thing is that until Hab Domes all that N is wasted if you go full farm/solar. A mix should be best I think
True before hab domes, but afterward it becomes an issue. Which is why it may be best to lower the tech needed for enrichers; that comes out similarly to +2 N/farm in much of the midgame (particularly the part where it's needed), but constitutes no increase in the endgame. It also helps avoid having a nutrient boost (from enrichers) and nutrient value boost (from thinkers and engineers) come so close to each other.
Post by: Yitzi on March 25, 2015, 09:00:18 PM
Post by: Nexii on August 18, 2015, 04:59:25 AM
Anarchy, None, -GROWTH
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Traditional, None, -EFFIC
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +++INDUSTRY,--EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,--INDUSTRY
Survival, None, -MORALE
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,--SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY,++GROWTH,---MORALE
Primitive, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,++TALENT,-INDUSTRY,-MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Some notes
- Overall this set is a little less harsh despite staying balanced, as Demo got +TALENT and Eudaimonic got +2 TALENT
- Going PS early game was giving -3 GROWTH. So I put -GROWTH on Politics tier instead thus boosting PS also
- Power got a boost, it's no longer super crippling to run and more enticing to get. Encourages some more aggression in the mid game.
- Knowledge weakened a little; it's still good as the middle ground between Power/Wealth
- Green penalties lessened, it was weak early game
- Planned...hard to say here. It's now the most 'extreme' SE to take sort of what the old Free Market was like. The 2 IND / 2 GROW version was too good all around, I'll have to test out this version.
- Survival getting -MORALE sort of doesn't make sense?
Post by: Nexii on December 21, 2015, 08:22:19 PM
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, +++ECONOMY,---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +++INDUSTRY,--EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,+TALENT,--INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT
Survival, None, None
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +TALENT,++GROWTH,---MORALE
None, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,++TALENT,-MORALE,-INDUSTRY
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Post by: Nexii on December 31, 2015, 07:58:22 PM
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,++GROWTH,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, +++ECONOMY,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, +++INDUSTRY,--EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,+TALENT,---INDUSTRY
Survival, None, None
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH,--PROBE,-SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +TALENT,++GROWTH,--MORALE
None, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,+TALENT,--MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,++INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
So I'm not sure if I really reached the end goal of more variety or not. I think that war and builder SEs tend to go together. But each tier sort of has a 'middle' ground SE now. Police State, Knowledge, Cybernetic. Economics tier is a bit different since Green is more to stabilize alien life, and the other two have minerals and energy focuses. I mod with higher ecodamage, no flooding, no planetpearls, 2:1 psi combats. So native life can be quite problematic and not desirable. At +3 PLANET there is 0 ecodamage however. So this means if you run Green you don't 'need' to run the ecodamage facilities.
Post by: vonbach on December 31, 2015, 11:45:31 PM
Planned is OP. Green is UP.
Post by: Nexii on January 01, 2016, 01:17:18 AM
I'd say that Planned gets to be strong only after you hit Boreholes. Before then FM is faster since you need early techs more than early infrastructure. Also Planned will outproduce your pop growth early game. Green probably is UP early but with ecodamage modded to be relevant PLANET becomes really important. Replacing formers/re-terraforming is also very expensive. Having a base sacked by swarms is even worse.
So to keep the set balanced where would you put -RESEARCH other than Fund? And what's a thematic penalty for Fund?
Post by: vonbach on January 01, 2016, 01:50:24 AM
effic. Honestly the real issue with all the bonuses and penalties is some of them are too strong in either direction.
I suppose it depends on what you want Fund to be used for. I always liked it as a hybrid between Police and Democracy.
Like Growth and morale for Fund. Or better yet making Fund the stability option for Governments +2 morale +1 Talent -Support or effic.
Post by: Nexii on January 01, 2016, 03:53:04 AM
Depends on your take on Fundamentalism. Not sure they'd be anti-money, tithing was a thing for the church. I see that more as a benefit (citizens give EC back to the state willingly) than a cost.
But it can be argued that PS > Fund > Democracy in terms of aggression. Historically police states (despots) have been the most warmongering. If you wanted that perhaps shift all 3 over? Democracy could be very resistant to probing...they were immune to subversion in Civ2. I find these sort of mixed SEs interesting...but also much harder to pick from.
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,++SUPPORT,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC,+++PROBE,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++GROWTH,-----RESEARCH
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 30, 2017, 03:57:03 PM
Really I always felt +ECON was a screwy SE with its odd breakpoints. Something like +/- to total Energy production might have been more interesting than hard square modifiers. But as Yitzi said this isn't easy to modify...so it's best to make due.
Hi Nexii.
I agree with you that Economy is the least smooth progressing effect. Others may have surges at the extreme points like +3 Police which is fine and in line with general SE selection paradigm. I.e. you are free to push one effect to extreme to get super benefits if you like but lock yourself to specific SE combination and suffer from other negative effects. Whereas Economy gives you its biggest boost at +1=>+2 transition while the extreme one +4=>+5 is quite weak in comparison.
You may find my effect weight comparison analysis interesting. There I am trying to calculate relative weight of different effect by comparing their net effect on your empire and by trying to substitute them one for another.
http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Social_Engineering_Mod (http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Social_Engineering_Mod)
Interestingly enough, there I also introduce an artificial/fictitious Energy effect that simply increase energy production 10% for each step on a scale. Such effect doesn't exist but it proved to be a convenient linear replacement for Economy.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on January 30, 2017, 04:08:02 PM
QuoteSomething like +/- to total Energy production might have been more interesting than hard square modifiers. But as Yitzi said this isn't easy to modify...so it's best to make due.
It probably could be done if you describe what you want, it's just not such a high priority.
I add my voice to Nexii's one. The "Energy production" effect would be a more linear replacement to Economy. Simple +/-1 on Energy effect scale would change your raw base energy yield to +/- 10%.
Post by: Yitzi on February 20, 2017, 01:46:34 AM
Really I always felt +ECON was a screwy SE with its odd breakpoints. Something like +/- to total Energy production might have been more interesting than hard square modifiers. But as Yitzi said this isn't easy to modify...so it's best to make due.
Hi Nexii.
I agree with you that Economy is the least smooth progressing effect. Others may have surges at the extreme points like +3 Police which is fine and in line with general SE selection paradigm. I.e. you are free to push one effect to extreme to get super benefits if you like but lock yourself to specific SE combination and suffer from other negative effects. Whereas Economy gives you its biggest boost at +1=>+2 transition while the extreme one +4=>+5 is quite weak in comparison.
Actually, the boosts past +2 are deceptively (potentially) powerful, especially later in the game (when +1 energy/square is not such a big deal, especially once orbital power transmitters come online), because they increase your commerce rating. Assuming you trade with roughly equal-output bases and can pass the global trade pact, each point of ECONOMY past +2 gives (assuming an unmodded tech tree) a ~3.6% (1/28) boost to energy output per treaty, and ~7.1% (1/14) per pact. Not a huge boost, but that's per treaty/pact per extra point of ECONOMY, so if you focus on it by getting lots of pacts, it adds up to quite a significant boost.
On top of that, COMMERCE rating heavily affects the cost of an economic victory; IIRC, late in the game a +5 ECONOMY rating results in roughly half the corner cost of a +2 rating.
Post by: Alpha Centauri Bear on February 20, 2017, 01:43:05 PM
Post by: Nexii on March 08, 2017, 05:17:08 AM
I'm trying out this now after a long SMAC break.
So overall:
Democratic/FM/Planned weakened
Green buffed a little
Knowledge about the same
Future SEs made stronger
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, +++ECONOMY,---PLANET,--SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,--EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,++EFFIC,+TALENT,---INDUSTRY
Survival, None, None
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,--PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, +TALENT,++GROWTH,--MORALE
None, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,++TALENT,--MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,+++INDUSTRY,-SUPPORT,-EFFIC
The economy SEs are kind of extreme. -3 IND may still leave Green underpowered, even with modded ecodamages and 1/3/0 Forests. Have to play more and try it out. I don't feel that Fundamentalism was underpowered even with the huge negative research. Elite troops are so deadly and underestimated...Spartans/Believers are pretty terrifying with Fundamentalism
Post by: Nexii on April 30, 2017, 02:02:16 AM
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE,+++PROBE,--GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, +EFFIC,++GROWTH,+TALENT,-----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE,++SUPPORT,-----RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, +++ECONOMY,---PLANET,-SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY,-EFFIC,---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET,+EFFIC,+TALENT,---INDUSTRY
Survival, None, None
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE,+SUPPORT,--EFFIC
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,--PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, +TALENT,++GROWTH,--MORALE
None, None, None
Cybernetic, DigSent, +++RESEARCH,+EFFIC,-GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH,++ECONOMY,++TALENT,--MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, +POLICE,+++INDUSTRY,--SUPPORT,-EFFIC
Post by: Quadhelix on May 13, 2017, 02:55:06 PM
- Move Democratic Politics's +2 Growth to Fundamentalist Politics (replacing either the +1 Morale or the +2 Probe) and find another bonus for Democratic Politics (+1 Research?).
- Move the +2 Probe from Fundamentalist Politics to Police State Politics (replacing the +2 Support).
- Give Planned Economics +2 Support (replacing either the +2 Growth or the +1 Industry).
(click to show/hide)
Like I said, a lot of this is, I think, retreading well-worn ground. I think the main difference is that the final result here is much closer to the original SE choices because I'm making the absolute minimum number of changes to execute my ideas -- moving the Growth bonus from Demo to Fundy forces moving the Probe bonus from Fundy to PS, which forces moving the Support bonus from PS to Planned, which may force moving the Growth bonus from Planned to FM.
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2017, 10:25:03 PM
Police State +2 PROBE +2 POLICE -2 EFFIC
Democracy +2 EFFIC, +? -2 SUPPORT
Fundamentalism +2 GROWTH +1 MORALE -2 RESEARCH
Free Market +2 ECON +2 GROWTH -3 PLANET -5 POLICE
Planned +2 SUPPORT +1 INDUSTRY -2 EFFIC
Rest same
The issue I had with default EFFIC penalties is that PS/Planned is never viable (-4 EFFIC). I suppose one can cut PS to -1 EFFIC if you're going for a less extreme SE set. What I found was that +2 PROBE isn't that powerful. +3 PROBE is very useful though (conversion immune), and +3 POLICE is potentially too powerful for Yang if -2 EFFIC remains the downside. PS would still be okay at +2 POLICE +2 PROBE -1 EFFIC for Spartans, and any faction with Ascetic Virtues.
Democracy would need a little more boost I agree...probably +TALENT or +RESEARCH. +RESEARCH probably sets it more apart from Fundamentalism. Contrasting choices tend to be more compelling. Demo/Planned feels a bit tepid with net +1 INDUSTRY +1 RESEARCH but it's a kind of safe/socialist government so perhaps fitting :P. I think Democracy might need +2 RESEARCH even to be compelling to take over Fundamentalism in that set. +2 GROWTH is really good and it's why in the default SE set you'd almost always take Democracy.
Post by: Nexii on November 12, 2017, 09:12:49 PM
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++PROBE, ++INDUSTRY, ++POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++RESEARCH, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC
Bioengineered, HomoSup, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET
Post by: Nexii on November 15, 2017, 03:26:03 PM
Overall found it surprisingly balanced with a lot of options. If you make native life more threatening and nerf advanced terraforming an SE buff is a good way to offset.
Univ and CyCon take a big hit with Fund aversion - CyCon can't boom until very late game. But arguably they were the #1/#2 factions.
Drones might remain OP or even more being able to get +5 IND early. Most other factions can get +3 IND with better research though.
Hive goes from one of the best to average...though they can get +3 IND without Democracy
Believers might be a bit weak. I think their mid and late game is strong, only they can get +3 SUP without the SP. And they can run Fund/FM/Wealth which should be the strongest boom combo.
Post by: Nexii on November 15, 2017, 10:02:10 PM
#HELPSOC31
In the far future, citizens may turn many of the tasks of governing
society over to artificially intelligent computers, increasing productivity.
AI-controlled robots perform all industrial and service level tasks,
leaving humans to the realms of science and art. Advanced AI algorithms
predict crime and civil disobedience, preventing domestic issues before they occur.
--
To me the bonuses applied to Cybernetic never really made sense. I see the computer/machine future SE more like 'Minority Report' or maybe even dystopia as a contrast to Eudaimonic. I think full on AI control of everything might not make much sense in the context of SMAC. Otherwise we'd have machine life ascending and not humans. As well it would sort of supersede the top tier of Politics. That being said Fund+AI Controlled might be interesting...would we then worship computers? And how about PS/Eudaimonic...a strict society with high expectations?
Post by: Nexii on November 20, 2017, 06:49:25 PM
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT
Knowledge, Cyber, +++RESEARCH, +PLANET
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++PROBE, ++INDUSTRY, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++RESEARCH, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC
Bioengineered, HomoSup, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET
Gave AI Controlled ++SUPPORT as there wasn't really a way to hit +3 SUPPORT SE. Seemed most fitting there as it was the weakest and the automation would make supporting armies/formers easier.
Even with all those bonuses the AI doesn't really like AI Controlled as a choice. But I think it's decent, if you are going for a late-game horizontal expansion w/satellites.
Post by: Nexii on March 26, 2020, 11:32:39 PM
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -PLANET
Planned, Poly, +INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, -PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, -MORALE
None, None,
AI Control, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++POLICE,-PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++EFFIC, -POLICE
Bioengineered, WillPow, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET,-SUPPORT
Haven't changed things too much. Put in mild penalties, getting any SE was just such a huge boost that it made those techs essential. Strong penalties never worked well for the AI, it considers bonuses much more strongly than penalties when picking SEs.
Free Market's still a touch too good in nearly all circumstances. May make it --PLANET or -PLANET, -POLICE. -INDUSTRY on FM might also be interesting to represent waste and make it more energy focused over minerals
Not sure if I really like +INDUSTRY for Democracy thematically, it's supposed to represent less waste. +ECONOMY or +RESEARCH feel a bit more fitting, but those are more common in this set already
Likewise with Knowledge -PROBE never made much sense... -POLICE might be more appropriate.
Post by: Nexii on April 05, 2020, 11:13:16 PM
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -PLANET, -INDUSTRY
Planned, Poly, +INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, -POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, -MORALE
None, None,
AI Control, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++POLICE,--PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++EFFIC, --POLICE
Bioengineered, WillPow, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET,--SUPPORT
Doubled up on the advanced SE penalties, they give twice the pluses so -2 isn't so bad.
Free Market got -1 IND, I think it's more in-line with the other economic choices.
Knowledge feels a little weaker, -1 POL is kind of hurtful when combined with Democracy, it's most likely pairing. Probably fine though as +PLANET is quite strong with other modifications I have in
Fund/Wealth might also be a bit too strong. GROWTH is tough to balance around for sure. Personally I like booming, it's part of the game to control a booming population. And it kind of depowers the 2 most OP factions anyways University and CyCon
Post by: Antiochos Epiphanes on April 13, 2020, 03:46:23 PM
are these values for vanilla gameplay only or do they fit well when using Scient's Patch + Thinker mod, too? I ask because I have no idea whether the former do any change to the AI weighing its SE choices (don't even know whether that's possible at all) and even though I'm very happy about those unofficial patches I also re-discovered the flaws of the original game like Fundamentalism giving a Probe bonus while Police State does not. What I do understand is that fine-tuning SE values is delicate work, so I'd like to shamelessly benefit from your work if possible.
Post by: Nexii on April 13, 2020, 11:56:34 PM
SE changes work fine for any other modding. I do a bunch of other custom modding, notably to make PLANET/PROBE more relevant. I'd say +2 ECON and +2/4 GROWTH are depowered a bit with my modding too, because building maintenance is lower and advanced nutrient terraforming comes later. Still the most powerful SEs breakpoints though.
In general I've found the same as other modders. I tried larger negative SE penalties for awhile but the AI struggles with it. The AI gives little consideration to negatives and mostly on what the pluses are, which is a flaw. So taking out the most crippling choices that take a faction to things like -4 EFFIC, -3 GROWTH, etc.
Trying with doubled up penalties to Fundamentalist (-2 RESEARCH) and Wealth (-2 MORALE) now. They're maybe just a touch too good at -1 but it's hard to tell. Personally I like booming in the game because you can risk economic greed, but it should come at a reasonable cost.
TLDR - I think the AI basically picks SEs the same no matter what other patch or modding you do. I've seen it pick everything in my modded set
Post by: Antiochos Epiphanes on April 14, 2020, 11:30:00 AM
Post by: Nexii on April 14, 2020, 05:15:19 PM
- rebalance of unit costs. flat armor costs, increase to air unit costs, free abilities, dual ability units come much later in the tech tree
- 50% sensors for defense, 50% intrinsic base defense
- borehole, forest, and sea facilities come later. faster echelon construction, slower forest terraforming
- cheaper facilities & maintenance to offset terrain nerfs and make +2 ECON less essential
- cheaper SPs generally, as the AI switches off them and to encourage teching to unique techs first
- mild ecodamage with clean minerals removed
- some minor tech and SP shuffling, such as cloning vats come late instead of mid game
- native life gets +3 planet, and planet applies to defense
- removal of all free probe team morale boosts from techs
lately I'm playing around with native life ideas. the main problem is that it moves slow. I've tried lower cost / slow and going to try out higher cost / fast
It doesn't relate too heavily to SEs though, most sets people make will work with any other modding. The AI only considers a few things from what I can tell by many simulated games. It seems to most prioritize MORALE when at war and RESEARCH when not at war. Overall it undervalues ECONOMY and GROWTH. It doesn't go crazy for PLANET rating either but the priority does seem to raise a bit when native life is cheaper... it may check the amount of native life units built or something. And some factions just seem to have general preferences too...
Likewise with negative SEs, the AI doesn't really check if a SE is maxed out from what I can tell. Like it will keep raising SUPPORT past +3 and MORALE past +4. This is a little harder to avoid than bad negative picks. So I suggest keeping most bonuses to +1/+2 to make it harder to overstack benefits.
Post by: Antiochos Epiphanes on April 15, 2020, 04:31:20 PM
Anyway, I took your last SE table and so far I'm very happy with it, the game feels balanced and better - and I think the AI tends to have more energy, by the way:
Lal has Fundamentalist, Planned, Wealth
Deidre Police State, Green, Power
Zakharov Democratic, Planned, Knowledge
Morgan Police State, Free Market, Power
Miriam Fundamentalist, Planned, Power
Yang Police State, Planned, Wealth
I as Spartans chose Police State, Planned, Power for the moment
Post by: Nexii on April 15, 2020, 06:39:25 PM
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -PLANET, -INDUSTRY
Planned, PlaNets, +INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, -POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Control, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++POLICE,--PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++EFFIC, --POLICE
Bioengineered, WillPow, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET,--SUPPORT
This is my most current. I'd say to try PLANET at -2 or even -3 on Free Market if you don't apply PLANET to PSI combat or have native life boosted up.
Yea PS/Planned/Power is great for Sparta. Maxed out POLICE, PROBE and MORALE is incredible. They do lose easy pop booming where they don't have Wealth. But that's not a big deal compared to losing -2 IND and -4 EFFIC before, it wasn't even an option. 3 police units per base means you don't have to make drone facilities for a long time.
Agree on Morgan being weak I haven't seen him finish top 3 in a lot of simulated games. He's supposed to be this great vertical builder but it's just mediocre with small bases. Even in a peaceful world his commerce is kinda meh if you make smaller bases in excess they have no one to trade with. I like the idea of lessening his hab penalty. I considered whether he should get free energy banks or something else...
Strangely Gaians and PKs seem to do the best in simulated games. I'm not sure why that is.
Post by: Nexii on April 19, 2020, 03:42:13 AM
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, --POLICE, +TALENT
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -PLANET, -MORALE
Planned, PlaNets, +INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Control, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++POLICE,--PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++EFFIC, --POLICE
Bioengineered, WillPow, ++GROWTH, ++MORALE, ++PLANET,--SUPPORT
Just a few minor economic tweaks:
Free Market got -MORALE instead of -INDUSTRY. Much like Wealth, with more of the population working to generate economic activity it comes more of a military cost than industrial.
Green got -INDUSTRY instead of -SUPPORT. A Green economy wouldn't really make military more expensive to support. But it would slow down overall production.
Edit: one more, I put Demo back to -2 POLICE. This way P-drones come back if running Knowledge or for negative POLICE factions. Offset by +TALENT, otherwise it's not really runnable early game.
Post by: Bearu on April 19, 2020, 07:03:38 AM
I never use the expanded SMACX technology tree, so the Social models operate with the approximately original SMAC technology tree. This means no Aliens appear in my games.
I renamed Economy to Energy. I internally modified the code to remove +1 energy per square because of the imbalance of the bonus. I made +Economy provide +1 commerce at +2, +3, and +4. I made negative economy provide -1 Commerce at -1 Energy.
I removed the + modifier for Positive Morale at +2 and +3 and the 1/2 military modifiers for -2 or lower morale. Morale now provides straight morale bonuses.
I changed Advanced Military Algorithms to Doctrine: Total War because of the doctrine symbol around the tech and the fact the tech provides the option to repeal the UN charter.
I renamed Doctrine: Loyalty to Doctrine: Security because the symbol looks like a stylized S.
(click to show/hide)
Post by: Nexii on April 19, 2020, 02:53:26 PM
Post by: Bearu on April 19, 2020, 03:30:09 PM
Interesting where is MORALE / ECON modded that way? The above are just the toolips as far as I can tellI made many personal changes through .exe modification under the latest version of Yitzi's Patch.
My changes cover a fairly comprehensive list of AI alterations and some display changes, but the relevant changes appear below:
I optimized the commerce section to add two potential additional commerce modifications for Economy. I added -1 Commerce rate to -1 Economy and left the other commerce change blank for now because -1 Energy at HQ means nothing in most games.
I modified the progression of Economy. I removed the +1 energy per square bonus for Economy. The game manual states the +4 energy per base and + 3 commerce should start at +5 Economy, but the game only calculated energy additions to +4 Economy. I had to make a design decision on the Economy score, so I decided on a linear growth so certain posirive Economy scores never receive unwieldy bonuses through +5 Economy.
I removed the nasty Children's Creche and Brood Pit bug for Negative Morale in base squares from the game. I then noticed the uneven distribution of bonuses and penalties for MORALE, and I decided to try +4 Morale and -4 MORALE so the non-social MORALE bonus can provide a faction immediate elite units. I need to play test more to find if the change unbalances the game.
Post by: Nexii on April 20, 2020, 12:10:20 PM
Post by: Bearu on April 20, 2020, 03:40:07 PM
Interesting. I always felt like ECON should have been a % modifier to economy, rather than adding or removing the base square. When you get deeper into the game the base square doesn't really mean much. But I suppose COMMERCE really does (most of the time), so that is okayI can agree with your sentiment on Economy. Do you mean the economy output or the actual formula for calculating Economy.
The problem with modifying the economy production of bases through the ECON score remains the strength of the bonus and the practicality of the implementation. If I followed the progression bonus of +10% Economy production per base like RESEARCH, for example, then you would receive essentially a free energy bank at each base with +5 ECONOMY that stacks with the other facility bonuses. The game uses a point system for 25% increments of change for facilities in the economy, laboratory, and psych allocations of a base. This point system for the modification of base output remains the reason most of the base facilities provide straight either +25% or +50% bonuses to these outputs. RESEARCH only modifies Research technology cost formula after the summed total of laboratories appears in the research rate function, not the base production of laboratories.
Furthermore, the developers' assignment of Discover mandate priority for energy production suggests Economy fulfills the role of improving both research and economy output. Anywhere the AI focuses on Energy production outside the Research, Psych, and Economy allocation controls, the Discover and Build mandates prioritize energy production.
Post by: Nexii on April 20, 2020, 05:14:37 PM
What I meant was ECONOMY should only modify the energy that is allocated into energy credits. Not the portion that goes to labs or psych. But then it might not be quite so crucial, so I don't really know if it would make for a better game. Certainly it would be easier to balance around. And theres the side issue that then there's no SE that really boosts up PSYCH (which there probably should be, come to think of it). Something like a CULTURE SE
But yea the way they implmented it ENERGY is a better name as you pointed out
Post by: Nexii on April 29, 2020, 08:03:56 PM
INDUSTRY seems to fit AI Controlled (Cybernetic) a bit better, machines can produce more things than humans. PLANET never really made sense. Neither did RESEARCH really, that seems more Utopian (Eudaimonic) fitting. So I gave AI Controlled SUPPORT, I think it makes sense. A drone army is lower cost than a human one. Downside is PROBE, representing the vulnerability of automated systems and reduced population loyalty to non-human leaders. Negative POLICE never seemed fitting really to me. It's kind of the middle-ground Future Society SE, decent for both war and peace.
Utopian gets negative POLICE instead of MORALE. Star Trek as an example they are a utopia and still build war ships. Non-interference or non-aggression is better represented by minus police than morale. Definitely the peaceful or late-game defensive choice to Transcend the first.
Orwellian (Thought Control) keeps the same benefits it always had. Good for war and population control. I didn't feel negative support made sense. Negative research is more thematic, 1984 was all about destroying past knowledge to keep control. Of course its the war choice, to try to conquer at the endgame.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -PLANET, -MORALE
Planned, PlaNets, +INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, -ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++GROWTH,---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE,---RESEARCH
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 01, 2020, 03:06:16 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 01, 2020, 04:04:16 AM
Yea I might do some tinkering yet to make the Future SEs come just a little earlier. They are very powerful though, they allow factions with penalties and aversions to break those weaknesses. So I didn't really want that to be present for most of the game. They fuel a very fast endgame though I have done some things to mitigate that such as putting Cloning Vats and Satellites onto endgame techs. Maybe try them at +3/+3/+3/-3 to make them more dramatic. I had done more extreme SEs in the past but found the AI started to struggle especially if the penalties are big.
Leaning back to making Free market's penalties negative support, negative planet again. To symmetrically oppose Planned's +Support, and Green's +Planet and to make all categories represented in the penalty column. Still unsure how harsh to make it, have to test more. Free Market has been my bane, lol. I think I've altered that SE more than all others combined.
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 01, 2020, 02:46:20 PM
It would have been interesting if the future SEs had unique benefits/penalties. Some of them feel more like Politics choices. Like what is Democratic / Orwellian... (vote to be oppressed?) Police State / Utopian (maybe Yang would agree?) ... Fundamentalist / AI Control (is AI your new god?). There's probably better original ideas out there... I did like the Bioengineered one someone had. Where your population is becoming Planet/Human hybrids (at least as I interpreted it). I'd be interested in any other original future SE ideas others have.
I'm ok with early SE choices not having much synergy with the later ones. Narratively and design-wise it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Believers to win by Transcendence! Conquest is the earliest achievable victory so I'm ok with some early SE choices designed around giving the conquest-oriented factions the tools for rapid victory while the other choices are for their would be victims to build up and survive the onslaught.
In chronological order, the victory types go Conquest-->Economic/Diplomatic-->Transcendence. Of course Economic is very strange and needs fixing, but six of the original factions map onto that order very well: Spartans/Believers-->Morgan/Lal-->Deidre/Zak. I think that's when those factions should "peak" so to speak? Yang is a wildcard with his efficiency immunity giving him the PS/Planned superpower plus his free perimeter defenses giving him early game staying power. He's always a threat.
I've thought about this a lot in the last 20 years or so, lol.
Quote
Yea I might do some tinkering yet to make the Future SEs come just a little earlier. They are very powerful though, they allow factions with penalties and aversions to break those weaknesses. So I didn't really want that to be present for most of the game. They fuel a very fast endgame though I have done some things to mitigate that such as putting Cloning Vats and Satellites onto endgame techs. Maybe try them at +3/+3/+3/-3 to make them more dramatic. I had done more extreme SEs in the past but found the AI started to struggle especially if the penalties are big.
Maybe the endgame should accelerate, though! You're given access to all of sorts of powerful modifiers and planetbusters. At that point it's sink or swim. Either achieve transcendence or subjugate everyone before they have the chance.
Quote
Leaning back to making Free market's penalties negative support, negative planet again. To symmetrically oppose Planned's +Support, and Green's +Planet and to make all categories represented in the penalty column. Still unsure how harsh to make it, have to test more. Free Market has been my bane, lol. I think I've altered that SE more than all others combined.
If you're going to have Free Market the key to achieve +2 ECONOMY then I don't think it should be possible to achieve zero or positive PLANET. Free Market is the ultimate F U to Planet. You should have to suffer more from ecodamage and psy attack and fungus should be economically worthless to you. +2 ECONOMY is also extremely powerful in the hands of the player so how do you balance it so you're not simply buying the world? I don't know! ;)
Post by: Nexii on May 01, 2020, 05:26:55 PM
I renamed Wealth to Prosperity since in this set it's more about population well-being (+2 GROWTH) than industrial infrastructure. It's much like the 'Socialism' some put into economics tier but more of a values equivalent. Thus you can sort of have socialism with any economic system. Values are more about what you focus on with surplus resources (military, research, or social spending). It still fits Sparta to be aversive to Prosperity, they don't believe in the weak receiving charity. Cult not so much, but I put them to be Democratic averse instead. Could see Cult also being FM averse but trying to set them apart from Gaia too.
The endgame being fast is mostly okay I guess. The thing at the end is the velocity of war really picks up. Units get faster, drop pods, air units, gravships, monorails, etc all make it much faster for conquest factions to try to win by conquering. So techs being faster isn't entirely a bad thing. I do feel like Utopian is a bit better than the other 2 future SEs but it also comes last.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, --PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH,+PLANET, --POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH,++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 02, 2020, 05:04:32 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 02, 2020, 12:46:26 PM
I've been trying out a more thematic version of Cult with +1/+1/+1 on fungus. It's interesting to play a faction that doesn't really have to terraform very much. I stuck them with -2 ECONOMY though which is harsh. Even if you do run FM+Prosperity that's only +1 ECON. As well even if you do reach +2 ECON by GA, the energy bonus doesn't apply to fungus. So it just wouldn't be a strategy that would be worth the downsides. Planned is also painful at -3 ECON, so they aren't likely to get any positives to INDUSTRY (Democracy averse).
Post by: Nexii on May 04, 2020, 02:07:26 AM
Police State got -1 GROWTH, replacing -1 EFFIC. -1 EFFIC is a far bigger penalty than I wanted to admit and Police State was just inferior to the other choices. Anyways I felt that Police States are more marked by oppression, than corruption.
Democracy got an additional -1 PROBE. -1 POLICE alone made it a free SE for most factions. Represents the more open nature of Democracies, and opposes it to PS's benefits.
Planned nerfed from -1 to -2 ECONOMY. Same as Democracy, -1 wasn't a real penalty anyways, only affecting the HQ. It's a significant mineral boost.
Green reduced from +2 to +1 EFFIC, new benefit of +1 RESEARCH to compensate. Represents the research knowledge gained from understanding and protecting Planet's ecosystems.
Power got a big rework. Less of a MORALE boost. I didn't want factions being able to get so much morale early-mid game. However it got a big boost to SUPPORT. Meaning you can go Planned for really large armies but it's not a necessity. -1 EFFIC is about on par with -2 GROWTH. Power I see as more related to corruption and energy skimming.
Knowledge got +1 PROBE added. Knowledge needed a little boost, since the other Values were made a little more powerful. I did consider +TALENT but that mostly negated the POLICE penalty. This is kind of against the stock vision. But as I see it one of the best ways to gain information is to steal it by espionage.
Prosperity got +1 EFFIC, replacing +1 ECONOMY. Penalty reduced to -1 MORALE. Having +1 ECONOMY on this tier wasn't really a good thing, it meant for factions with high economy Prosperity could give more labs than Knowledge. Now that's a lot less likely. This is quite a big change too as it makes it so +1 ECONOMY factions can't run Prosperity to avoid Free Market penalties. The efficiency represents increased equality and justice when excess wealth is shared with one's followers.
It feels like I've sort of come complete circle on the SE table. Tried extreme benefits, mild benefits, and in the end I think the developers weren't too far off. This set has 7 less in total penalties and 1 less in total benefits. The problem with the original set was that many combinations or even individual choices were just bad, EFFIC was overrepresented as a penalty. Thus giving the AI a lot of troubles with energy, often making it weak by mid-game. I can say it's very rare to see a game where a faction doesn't win by 2500 now.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY, -POLICE, -PROBE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, --PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, +EFFIC, +RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, -EFFIC
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, --POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, -MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: Nexii on May 05, 2020, 06:10:22 PM
1) Every penalty being represented. The original set didn't have -ECONOMY which was what started this thread discussion.
2) POLICE was broken up from stock Free Market so that its variety of effects could be realized. -5 or 0 made the whole POLICE scale meaningless. From less drone control (Demo or Knowledge), to a bit of P-drones (Demo and Knowledge), to a lot of P-drones (Utopian with others).
3) Keep pop booming in, but at a slightly higher cost. I guess this is debatable but Demo/Planned only costed -2 SUPPORT in the stock set. Here you have to eat -2 RESEARCH and -1 MORALE with Fundamentalism+Prosperity combination.
4) Disallowing any really crippling combinations. Fundamentalism+Planned+Power is about the worst for research. And even then you'll get something, it's not complete stagnation. like PS/Planned was. Likewise you can't hit -3 GROWTH (like CyCon/Pirates could with Green before), or any of the really bad dynamic ranges.
5) +3 PROBE earlier in the game if you really want mind control immunity (PS+Knowledge). Of course much easier to reach for +PROBE factions with a single SE.
6) More extreme SEs reserved for the late game. Tech speeds up late so even Orwellian isn't as bad as it seems.
7) Making SUPPORT easier to get. Since the AI likes to make a lot of cheap and garrison units, sort of have to go with it. PS+Power was just bad in the stock set. AI Controlled opens new options late game.
8.) SEs that the AI will actually pick. Tempering MORALE on values tier helped a lot there. The AI isn't crazy over Green but Green factions will pick it consistently now due to the research benefit.
9) Moved Politics techs earlier to tier 1. Economics to tier 2 (Green being Tier 3 is okay). Values all on tier 3. Follows the progression on the chart more smoothly. DocLoy is now tier1 in my tech tree.
Post by: vonbach on May 06, 2020, 05:36:37 AM
I was thinking of moving green to knowledge and adding Autarky in place of Green myself
.
Post by: Nexii on May 06, 2020, 02:08:51 PM
Green as a value is interesting. My Knowledge ended up being a bit like that, gaining knowledge about Planet and respect for Planet as a side benefit of research.
Post by: vonbach on May 07, 2020, 12:22:28 AM
Autarky is a closed economic system focused on its faction so it basically sacrifices economic growth for
actual physical growth.
Planned was going to be something of a compromise between the two. I wanted to give them other bonuses besides growth.
I was thinking of doing something similar with the governments. With Totalitarianism security with growth penalties.
Democracy (I'll probably change the name) with economic and efficiency bonuses at the price of probably support or police.
With fundamentalism (nationalist or traditionalist) focusing on growth at the price of progress and efficiency.
I've always wanted to move green to be a value not a economic system. With heavy bonuses but probably industry or growth penalties.
I was thinking something like this
Police State: +2Police +2 Probe -1Growth Democracy: +2Efficiency +1 Economy -1police -Support Traditionalist: +2Growth +Morale - Research -Effic
FreeMarket: +2Economy +1 Effic -2Planet -1 Police? Planned: not sure yet Autaky: +2 Growth +2Effic -2 Economy.
I actually like what you've done with yours a lot.
Post by: Nexii on May 07, 2020, 01:53:27 AM
I thought Police State and Democracy quite strange with my version of CyCon (where they're more like enslaved Borg). Police State might represent a more guarded/centralized command mode, Democracy more collaborative. It would be kind of cool if you could relabel SEs for certain factions. Or have 'replacement' SEs. Maybe the PKs don't like Police State but they have some other choice. That's a big wish though lol.
As for FM penalties I tried a lot of things even -TALENT. Pretty much anything that isn't economy or effic I think can make sense. FM is all about making money no matter what the cost is. Downside has to be fairly significant though cause +2 ECON is just so good. I sometimes think mine is a bit mild. Probably would be -3 PLANET if I didn't have native life boosted up so much
I'm still unsure about whether I really have planned right. I suppose often in the real world planned economies are used to support military and infrastructure. At the cost of luxuries and trade (economy). Or whether there's a better term, because a planned economy could decide to have the opposite focus
Post by: vonbach on May 07, 2020, 06:47:16 AM
Sometimes its better to keep things simple. One of the things I like to do is just remove the penalties
to help the AI.
Post by: Nexii on May 07, 2020, 09:13:15 PM
-1 EFFIC ~= Anarchy
0 EFFIC ~= Despotism
1 EFFIC ~= Monarchy
2 EFFIC ~= Fundamentalism
3 EFFIC ~= Republic
͚∞ EFFIC = Democracy and Communism, immune to inefficiency
So even the worst default Civ2 government wasn't more punishing than 0 EFFIC.
There was also a maximum distance, around 36, where inefficiency didn't get any worse. In practice this would have only helped Fundamentalism and Republic a small amount, since by that distance most energy (trade) was lost. I feel like they should have kept that in though, it would fix some of the inefficiency problems on huge maps. Or better just made the factor scale with map size.
It does make me consider whether to put all or most of the EFFIC bonuses and penalties on the Politics tier. That would potentially be a big redesign though.
Post by: Nexii on May 07, 2020, 10:11:13 PM
Theme wise I kind of like TALENT more. Helps Prosperity with booming and doesn't make it superior to Knowledge for research by giving ECON or EFFIC. The AI will probably hate it. It loves, loves, loves Power SE. But it also likes to war a lot and really it is the best choice in war.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, --PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, +RESEARCH, +TALENT
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, -TALENT
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, --POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 08, 2020, 01:09:21 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 08, 2020, 06:14:15 AM
I thought Democracy might need +5 EFFIC but +4 is probably okay. It depends a lot on empire size and whether you've built Creches.
Edit again: Made Democracy +4 EFFIC, +TALENT, -2 POLICE instead. Roughly as powerful, losing the police unit is both worse and better than +TALENT. The reason I went back on this is factions with -1 POLICE are rather aversive to Democracy. The second citizen in a town being a drone is a huge downside, I suppose stock Free Market would have had this issue too but it was a big economy boost so you were supposed to put some in PSYCH. With Democracy that's not the case, hence +TALENT. This way the second citizen will be a drone but the first will be a talent, so the base won't riot.
Knowledge has this issue too admittedly with negative POLICE. But I think I can kind of ignore it. Knowledge comes later in the game when most bases should be bigger than size 2. It can be offset by Democracy, Police State, Free Market, and Green. Or facilities.
Post by: vonbach on May 08, 2020, 10:49:39 PM
I'd give it a point of efficiency or something.
Heres a silly question is there a way to edit the pod settings to keep the computer from killing itself with mindworms and fungus explosions while exploring?
Post by: Nexii on May 08, 2020, 11:23:00 PM
I also feel like Green is maybe a bit weak, though I'm not sure what I'd give it really. I've thought about just eliminating the INDUSTRY penalty though that's kind of boring. FM / Planned I can say is balanced, good tradeoffs going on there. FM may need -3 PLANET in the stock game though I do play with PLANET affecting PSI defense.
There's not much you can do about AI behavior. Though you can turn off scattered unity pods from the map as a map creation option. One thing I do play with is 50% intrinsic base defense and 50% sensors, countered by +3 PLANET on native life. Makes native life less threat to cities. But the AI is still dumb and leaves cities empty early a lot.
Post by: vonbach on May 08, 2020, 11:52:45 PM
I'm tempted to simply turn off the unity pods for once.
Post by: Nexii on May 09, 2020, 12:22:21 AM
In other words Green with a lot of EFFIC just wouldn't be good with Democratic and probably even Fundamentalism. I kind of want to avoid that. You'll see this is why when non-Green Agenda factions do pick Green it's almost always with Police State.
The question really is what other than PLANET fits Green? I may just remove the -INDUSTRY since not much other than TALENT or RESEARCH fits. It's plenty good with the INDUSTRY penalty gone, Planned and FM have significant downsides. -INDUSTRY is almost like -EFFIC, you can make it work but the bonuses have to be really good
Post by: vonbach on May 09, 2020, 01:34:54 AM
I like to give green +2 growth and call it autarky. Currently its not that bad I just think like police state it needs a little boost.
I'd give them +2 planet +2 effic and maybe +1 growth. Maybe +1effic +2 growth. Industry is a serious penalty.
Post by: Nexii on May 09, 2020, 02:36:00 AM
Yea in the stock game PLANET is pretty bad. I forgot to note I did make native life a bit better. Mind worms move at speed 2, Isles at Cruiser speed 8, Sealurks the same. Costs reduced slightly as well. Having PLANET help PSI defense is a nice bonus too. I'll probably just keep Green as it is. Mild benefits and no real downside like FM and Planned. EFFIC on Green is a bit of a stretch, it doesn't bring justice. For that matter it might not make sense as Gaia's benefit...
I'm also unsure whether my AI controlled and Utopian benefits make sense. Utopias are often kind of post-currency, but maybe the +2 ECON does represent the abundance of post-scarcity economy. EFFIC seems to fit Utopian more though so I'd have to swap its research benefit. But maybe EFFIC does make sense for AI Controlled? AI isn't corrupt like a human can be.
Edit: It seems the AI hates Green at +2 grow +2 planet -1 ind. It also doesn't really like Prosperity how I have it now either. Seems to underrate GROWTH and overrate INDUSTRY, MORALE.
Post by: Nexii on May 09, 2020, 11:11:26 AM
It's tricky to find the intersection of what makes sense and what the AI will choose. I don't really like SEs that only a human player will take advantage of.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, +RESEARCH, +TALENT
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, -TALENT
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, +TALENT, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 09, 2020, 10:21:06 PM
So far all is well I've been using Fundamentalist Free Market and its going well. Fundamentalism is just the old Democracy with actual weaknesses.
Post by: Nexii on May 09, 2020, 10:45:53 PM
Monsoon Jungle, Jungle, 0
Edit: This might only work on Yitzi's patch
Yea I feel Fundamentalist is good, especially for a faction with +2 growth. Three options to pop boom, Creche, Prosperity, Golden Age. I always found Golden Age hard early game though, it's probably because I made Boreholes take more tech.
Post by: vonbach on May 09, 2020, 11:05:26 PM
Usually earth, venus or planet. I almost never make random maps.
Post by: Nexii on May 10, 2020, 03:31:22 AM
I really should run my testing on non-random maps now that I think about it. So much variance is in whether you get a good spot or not.
Post by: vonbach on May 10, 2020, 12:32:47 PM
Quote
I really should run my testing on non-random maps now that I think about it. So much variance is in whether you get a good spot or not.
The planet map is actually a decent test map. I know what to expect. I have a version with no jungle I like its more balanced.
Post by: Nexii on May 10, 2020, 04:13:39 PM
I think your Mars and Pangaea maps might be best for AI test games. AI does best over one big continent. Though personally I prefer playing on maps with a few continents, something about the feel of it.
I started a new game as Believers. They're quite strong at growth, I'm way up on population. Though their tech rate is bad, I'm keeping up but not the leader. Got lucky being near Morgan/PKs and no one wanted to war early. So I think at year 2189 I've gotten enough ahead that the rest of the game is sort of won.
I ended up putting Free Market to -3 PLANET. It's just that good. I think I was a bit worried how devastating tanking Planet could be. Because last time I had such steep -PLANET native life was too cheap to make. It became sort of unstoppable and made Green a necessity. Though it was amusing to see the AI build swarms of Isles of the Deep. I'm guessing at a certain point it sees them as both the best transport and the best fighting option.
And I can't seem to entice the AI to try Prosperity. Even without its penalty it likes Power and Knowledge more. Oh well. It is funny because it likes Fundamentalist a lot for GROWTH. And avoided Green due to negative INDUSTRY.
Edit: I think what's going on is the AI values GROWTH very low past +2. I do wonder if something was put in to temper it from booming often. There's no strong tendency to pick Fundamentalist when it's +6 GROWTH.
Post by: vonbach on May 10, 2020, 09:53:23 PM
On the subject of Green penalties what doesn't the AI care about? Maybe give it that as a penalty.
Or maybe -talent to try and fool the AI that there are no penalties.
Maybe try that. Give it something like Effic Planet and something like a point of growth or economy.
If thats too much growth maybe take a point away from fundamentalism.
Post by: Nexii on May 10, 2020, 10:18:37 PM
Green factions will take Green as I have it due to compulsion. And very rarely other factions. I'm okay with that, usually Free Market or Planned are better unless you already have +PLANET rating. Native life is kind of weak otherwise. Once you get up around 4-5 PLANET its very good especially against Free Market players. It's like you being at Elite morale and them being at Very Green. It's fine to keep Green sort of a niche strategy, because you also have powerful SPs like Dream Twist and Neural Amp that come in later. And the dreaded Wave ability once you get PSI on regular units cancels Trance. Super strong with PLANET applying to defense. I think if you don't have that on then it's reasonable to give Green a little more boost. +EFFIC, +GROWTH, something like that. But it's more like a MORALE boost to PSI units/combat really than a big economic boost.
I did give Prosperity +TALENT in addition to its +INDUSTRY. Minor, but I think it would increase faction happiness.
Post by: vonbach on May 10, 2020, 11:15:50 PM
One of the main reasons I'm using it is I'm trying to keep Miriam on my side as long as possible.
I gave her the +2 growth -2 pop like I gave myself and she's easily the second most powerful faction.
She destroyed another faction on her continent like I have.
Going from Free Market to anything else is a massive pain. None of the rest of the economic systems are good for actually making money.
Power seems weak especially with the - talent. Prosperity seems too strong. Knowledge I'll never pick with -2 police. Police ratings are just to hard to come by.
Police also isn't easy to come by. The talent helps but more police would be nice.
Post by: Nexii on May 10, 2020, 11:46:38 PM
I did mod many facilities to be somewhat lower on cost and maintenance. Many just weren't worth building like ever. I think the devs didn't really test out how hard it was to make any money while in anything but Free Market. Hologram Theatre and Research Hospital stick out to me as key early facilities that are overcosted. And a lot of the late-game facilities that honestly don't do that much for 20+ rows. 50% more on the base was much overestimated for things like Nanoreplicator, Quantum Lab.
You can mitigate it a lot by terraforming the sea. Kelp+tidal is really good till you get boreholes. Probably also if you're going all Forests it will result in lower energy than farm/solar. Which admittedly isn't that amazing on a flat map. I also made echelons fast to construct to make farm/solar more viable. They had a good idea here having multiple terraforming choices only...echelons were too slow and required too much tech. Plus I made enrichers come when you get Tree Farm, to keep them equal. I'm still playing around with how much tech Echelons should require if any. I didn't really like that 100% forests was ideal most of the time. I was trying to mod such that you'd want some energy-focused bases and some mineral-focused, but not quite there yet. Making Echelons available at the start of the game is an idea I'm playing around with.
Recosting facilities again is on my list.
Power I think is decent, SUPPORT I used to vastly underrate. But for much of the game your bases are around 10-20 minerals meaning 2 SUP is as good as 2 INDUSTRY, but only if it's used for military or terraformers.
I'm kind of leery of making +3 POLICE super easy for all factions because then its just 3 police sentinels per base and no need for drone facilities or any psych allocation for a very long time. I could make PS and/or Power get you there but then those picks would need much higher downsides. Another place to put +1 POLICE may be Planned. But yea easy +3 POLICE does scare me how strong it can be, it could overpower Police State in all circumstances. 9 drones or even superdrones quelled is no joke.
Knowledge being a bit weak I think that's a more fair observation. I think the issue is that it mostly only goes with Democratic, since you're losing the police sentinel anyways. I'll update Knowledge to be just -1 POLICE. Then it still can create P-drones for Democratic. I think what happened was I had Democratic at -1 POLICE so Knowledge had to be -2 to make P-drones show up before the super late game. It's fair to observe though that generally Power goes with Police State, Knowledge with Democratic, and Prosperity with Fundamentalist. Some mixing can occur... but that seems to be the tendency.
Post by: vonbach on May 11, 2020, 12:29:01 AM
Quote
I did mod many facilities to be somewhat lower on cost and maintenance. Many just weren't worth building like ever. I think the devs didn't really test out how hard it was to make any money while in anything but Free Market. Hologram Theatre and Research Hospital stick out to me as key early facilities that are overcosted. And a lot of the late-game facilities that honestly don't do that much for 20+ rows. 50% more on the base was much overestimated for things like Nanoreplicator, Quantum Lab.Making money is doable and I've lowered some of the costs myself and I think their still in place.
Quote
You can mitigate it a lot by terraforming the sea. Kelp+tidal is really good till you get boreholes. Probably also if you're going all Forests it will result in lower energy than farm/solar. Which admittedly isn't that amazing on a flat map. I also made echelons fast to construct to make farm/solar more viable. They had a good idea here having multiple terraforming choices only...echelons were too slow and required too much tech. Plus I made enrichers come when you get Tree Farm, to keep them equal. I'm still playing around with how much tech Echelons should require.
I always go almost pure forest spam simply because I like it and eat the energy costs.
Quote
Power I think is decent, SUPPORT I used to vastly underrate. But for much of the game your bases are around 10-20 minerals meaning 2 SUP is as good as 2 INDUSTRY, but only if it's used for military or terraformers.Police would be nice as an add on or a different penalty like -effic or - economy.
Quote
I'm kind of leery of making +3 POLICE super easy for all factions because then its just 3 police sentinels per base and no need for drone facilities or any psych allocation for a very long time.
Knowledge being a bit weak I think that's a more fair observation. I think the issue is that it mostly only goes with Democratic, since you're losing the police sentinel anyways. May reduce it to just -1 POLICE but then it's sort of a free pick? 0 POLICE and -1 POLICE are pretty much the same thing if you're in Fundamentalist. Though honestly it's better to be Prosperity with Fundamentalist, so I guess I shouldn't be worried. Ditto for Police State it has a strong tendency to go with Power. I'll update Knowledge to be just -1 POLICE. Then it still can create P-drones for Democratic. I think what happened was I had Democratic at -1 POLICE so Knowledge had to be -2 to make P-drones show up before the super late game.
I like to spread out Police bonuses a little. Like giving fundamentalism +police ++growth +effic +police --research. Just so you have a different option or giving power a +police.
Probe penalties for Knowledge is to weak and Police is too strong a penalty maybe split the difference and give knowledge something else but probe. Personally I always thought it suited power better. None of the bonuses power gets are that good in the long run really. All of them can be gotten through unit upgrades.
Maybe try something like this ++SUPPORT +MORALE +PROBE +POLICE for something like -economy and - effic.
I'm not sure I like prosperity with growth honestly. I like giving Green (autarky) growth but thats just me.
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 12:52:15 AM
Power at -1 EFFIC, hmm. Well, it might be ok now that Police State gives +1 EFFIC. I really don't want any factions going under 0 EFFIC. After comparing it to Civ2. I remember even Despotism how bad that was. But a Power-PS pretty much is Despotism. I get the spreading out, but I'm going to limit each SE to 4 total +/-. Past that and it doesn't display well... yea I know TALENT doesn't :/. Which is why I might remove all TALENT with some more tuning. Democratic might be the only one that truely needs it. There's no other way to offset an early -2 POLICE, than big economy like stock FM. So Green could get 1 EFFIC I guess rather than TALENT. Prosperity is fine without it.
So:
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, +RESEARCH, +EFFIC
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Another thing I modded as a sort-of morale fix was free armor. It never makes a unit more expensive to put better armor on it. All the cost increases come with higher weapons and faster chassis. So morale can help a lot more on defense. And with native life running around at +3 planet, it would scare me a bit to combo FM+Prosperity.
May try this out a bit. I feel like a sort of fascist build might be very strong (PS+FM+Power). The bad efficiency offset by free drone control. I'm probably overestimating it though -1 GROWTH is pretty bad.
Post by: vonbach on May 11, 2020, 01:08:28 AM
Quote
Sure, if you're going with Autarky +GROWTH what I'd do is make Prosperity back into Wealth. Give it +2 ECON like Free Market but with different downsides than FM. I kind of like the idea of having two options to get to +2 ECON (and honestly +4 ECON could be worth all the downsides). Maybe -3 POLICE, -2 MORALE or something like thaI might. I'll change it up and see how it goes. Oh by the way I changed the mindworms like you modded them in your thread. I like the change.
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 11:39:14 AM
Was kind of toying with a radical idea where Green is +2 ECON like FM but has different but equal downsides. Perhaps something like
Green, CentEmp, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, +EFFIC, ---INDUSTRY
Now due to Agenda logic oddities, Gaia and Cult wouldn't pick Green when it was their Agenda. But they curiously did pick it most of the time with no priority set. And seems to like it a lot more in peace time. Especially when I set PLANET as a SE priority (though I'm unsure if this does anything for certain). -3 INDUSTRY might be a bit much but it does show the AI doesn't completely hate the negative INDUSTRY like I thought before. +2 ECON must have a very high value.
I'm trying it out in a Gaia game now. One downside is that you don't get the +1 energy on fungus. It's more an issue for Cult as I designed them than Gaia. So far I seem to be keeping about even with other factions, rushed to Fundamentalist-Green Economy. I have the most pop but only #3 on power due to lacking in military and tech due to Fundy. I might go Democratic but Gaia already has great EFFIC. One good thing about crazy high EFFIC is the lack of B-drones.
Post by: vonbach on May 11, 2020, 01:09:42 PM
Planned usually gets something else. I like to make it compliment police state sometimes. I'm starting to like the
idea of a talent penalty for planned. I'm going to restart soon and see how it goes.
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 05:08:01 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++++EFFIC, +TALENT, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +SUPPORT, ++INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET, +EFFIC, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++ECONOMY, ---MORALE, --PROBE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 09:27:28 PM
Green went back to traditional benefits, since that was a total of +5 RESEARCH. I'll probably never really figure out how the AI picks things. Oddly Green factions seem to be liking this version of Green that they didn't before. Negative industry ended up being omitted. I think the only way I could get it in would be to give +2 ECON to green and that made it too similar to Free Market. Especially where Industry and Support are similar-ish penalties.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +EFFIC, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, +POLICE, -EFFIC
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PLANET, +PROBE, -POLICE
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --MORALE
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 11, 2020, 09:51:18 PM
Democracy is now overpowered. Mostly though both look good.
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 10:05:30 PM
The one the AI hates the most is negative MORALE. The AI will rarely pick Prosperity due to this. I don't want to buff it any more though, it's already super good. I gave my Pirates Prosperity immunity and compulsion, they pick it =)
Edit: I need to find a way to show the graph I made for EFFIC's diminishing returns. Unless you have bases really far from your capital it's not much of an increase. Though I think I'll make Democracy -3 POLICE to compensate. Democracy should be mostly peaceful. It's funny to look back at Civ2, Democracy was basically -5 POLICE. Republic was -4 POLICE. But both did give +2 ECON effectively. So basically those became Free Market. A Democracy running Power could get back to -2 POLICE and not have P-Drones.
Post by: vonbach on May 11, 2020, 11:14:15 PM
Quote
It seems the AI will still pick Green if it's -2 ECONOMY or -2 TALENT. But this is only factions that have Green compulsion. Others don't care for it most of the time even if there's no penalty.Maybe you might want to try a different tack with the economic systems. Make all of them decent at making money but Free Market the clear king for real penalties.
Something like this. Free Market ++economy +effic --planet --police or support. Planned ++support +economy - talent or morale. Green ++Planet +economy ++effic -talent or industry.
Quote
Edit: I need to find a way to show the graph I made for EFFIC's diminishing returns. Unless you have bases really far from your capital it's not much of an increase. Though I think I'll make Democracy -3 POLICE to compensate. Democracy should be mostly peaceful. It's funny to look back at Civ2, Democracy was basically -5 POLICE. Republic was -4 POLICE. But both did give +2 ECON effectively. So basically those became Free Market. A Democracy running Power could get back to -2 POLICE and not have P-Drones.Its more the talent that would push it into overpowered mode. I've always hated Democracy it was always overpowered in the original game.
Post by: Nexii on May 11, 2020, 11:59:40 PM
If all economics are +1 ECON then it's kind of the same as making the base square 2 energy instead of 1. I think they'd have to give different amounts of ECON to be more interesting. Like 3/2/1 or or 3/2/0 or 3/1/0 or 2/1/0. Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI. While the human player can Golden Age to get the all-important +2 ECON.
Post by: vonbach on May 12, 2020, 12:14:05 AM
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Yea I suppose maybe Democracy should just be +4 EFFIC, +1 RESEARCH, -2 POLICE. Second citizen in a town doesn't get quelled other than facilities. I kind of want to avoid TALENT because it doesn't show up in the UI. And the goal was to differentiate it a bit more from the others. For small empires Democracy isn't any better research rate than Police State. I guess it had +1 GROWTH but the police units are better. EFFIC only matters once you get bases beyond distance 10 or so.The ++++effic democracy isn't that bad it really depends on what the add ons are and what the penalties are. Maybe just make it -police or support.
Quote
If all economics are +1 ECON then it's kind of the same as making the base square 2 energy instead of 1. I think they'd have to give different amounts of ECON to be more interesting. Like 3/2/1 or or 3/2/0 or 3/1/0 or 2/1/0. Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI. While the human player can Golden Age to get the all-important +2 ECON.
Well the idea is to make a baseline to work off of. Make all of them "ok" at making money and then adding more.
Like Free market much better at money and maybe growth but at serious costs. Planned realistically should have growth or morale bonuses or talent.
While industry penalties fit green.
Quote
Kind of leery about that too cause +1 ECON SEs have to have mild downsides for the AI.What downsides would those be?
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 01:50:43 AM
It will probably be FM with +2 ECON, Green at +1, Planned at 0. Because ECON doesn't do a whole lot past +4. Takes a lot of test games... I have some ideas
Post by: vonbach on May 12, 2020, 01:54:30 AM
Out of all of them I think I like the "alternate" one with the green with growth the best.
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 02:30:13 AM
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +SUPPORT, +ECONOMY, -PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET, --INDUSTRY
Perhaps this
With Prosperity modified, since its an abundance of +GROWTH. This version might be better called "Infrastructure"
Prosperity, AdapEco, ++INDUSTRY, -SUPPORT, -MORALE
Post by: vonbach on May 12, 2020, 11:51:00 AM
Just the concept in itself. Wealth seems to fit better.
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 02:00:31 PM
High growth is more like Socialism, which would be a new economics choice. Planned might be better renamed as command economy, I'm not too sure. Same with socialism it could be also called communism.
So I see the main benefits as:
Free Market - economy
Planned - support, industry
Socialism - growth, efficiency
Power - morale, support, police
Knowledge - research, probe
Green - planet
I'm not as sure on the penalties for many of these. Green only giving planet might be a bit weak. Maybe it would steal support from Power, 'clean' units so to speak.
----
This is my first draft I'll work from here. Fundy and Police State were just a bit too efficient IMO. Creches give a lot of EFFIC (+2 each). I didn't really like how Police State felt a lot of the time. I'd rather have it be a bit less efficient without the negative growth.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT
Democratic, EthCalc, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +SUPPORT, --TALENT
Mixed, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --ECONOMY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PROBE, -POLICE
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, +SUPPORT
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 12, 2020, 03:07:08 PM
You can have market socialism (Yugoslavia) or a command economy and still be socialist. "Planned" in the game only implies there's a top-down structure that emphasizes heavy industry and growth at the price of inflexibility. The decisions can be made either democratically or not as chosen by the politics SE.
What's a good economics word that means "we recycle a lot" lol
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 03:24:09 PM
I do like the idea of Green being a values the more I think about it. Interestingly you could use it to offset Free Market. Although you'd be giving up Knowledge/Power benefits, so that's probably okay. I didn't really like it being on Economics tier because PLANET is sort of like a morale bonus, meaning it would be paired with Power. And yea that sort of goes against Planet's harmonious nature.
So would you name those economics "Planned" (industry/support) and "Communist" (growth/effic)? It seems to me that true Communism wouldn't be planned, the common people would make economic decisions rather than a central authority. "Free Market" could also be capitalist but I think they're very similar. Capitalist might be a bit more fitting, because the stock Free Market had a big police downside representing a more laissez-faire economy.
I suppose Socialist is represented by your amount of PSYCH allocation now that I think about it.
It seems the AI doesn't like Green or Communism, not a surprise. I think I'll try this set like it is for awhile anyways. Gaia can be Democratic agenda, Cult can be Fundamentalist. Not much I can do about the AI overvaluing MORALE and undervaluing PLANET. It also seems the AI values INDUSTRY too high relative to SUPPORT. Even a +2 SUPPORT -1 INDUSTRY Green wasn't taken by the AI. Which in the early game makes no sense.
Post by: EmpathCrawler on May 12, 2020, 05:56:10 PM
Free Market: Financialization of Planet by the means of producing as much energy as possible. Maximum rapaciousness for flexibility. I don't like terming this "capitalist" because the conflict between public and private ownership isn't being simulated in the game. The player has complete control over their faction's resources no matter what SE choice they make.
Planned: Bootstrap your colony by emphasizing production. You trade flexibility for raw industry so you can make one thing but quickly.
"Environmentalist": Growth is tough to reconcile here because it is so powerful and pumping out babies isn't very eco-friendly. I do like the symmetry of one resource per economic system, though. What about high efficiency coupled with support here? You don't have powerful modifiers, but you lose less of what you make? It's tough.
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 06:01:39 PM
Yea true communism is more like the future SE Utopian, post-scarcity society.
Maybe Mixed Market economy is a better term for the third one. It has aspects of both Free Market and Planned, and is halfway in between as far as ECONOMY SE.
I didn't want to give Green and Mixed too much efficiency because then there's no need to run Democratic. But a bit does make sense. If you play on huge maps I'd probably give PS, Democratic, and Fundamentalist all +1 EFFIC more. EFFIC doesn't scale by map size. Likewise for small maps they can be balanced by giving them all 1 EFFIC less.
Post by: vonbach on May 12, 2020, 10:06:25 PM
The only problem with the idea of putting green in the values tree is I'm not sure how the AI will react.
Its one of the reasons I haven't done so before.
The only thing I would do with the economics tree is reverse the penalties for planned an mixed.
Planned economies are soul crushing.
Post by: Nexii on May 12, 2020, 10:14:57 PM
The AI doesn't like Green much (it never did) because it puts a low value on PLANET and a high one on INDUSTRY. However if you really want factions to run it you can give them immunity to the penalty. Or -1 IND could be removed and maybe it wouldn't get the +1 EFFIC. I think otherwise it sort of risks outclassing Knowledge.
Likewise with Mixed, it hates losing MORALE (always did) even when it's not at war. Which seems sort of like a bug, there definitely is logic to raise the importance of +2 ECON when not at war.
Planned and Mixed swapping penalties I'd have to test out. I think the penalties are roughly equivalent. -2 ECON might be a bit worse earlier in the game and -2 MORALE a bit worse later on. I need to brush up on my economics to figure out what makes sense.
I did some tests and it seems that AIs with Green agenda have no problems with a Green that gives +2 PLANET, +1 SUPPORT only. I'll probably keep it this way. Because then Knowledge will always be better research than Green no matter what.
Whichever economics gets the -MORALE the AI will basically never pick. So to swap them means it goes more for GROWTH than INDUSTRY
Post by: vonbach on May 12, 2020, 11:53:13 PM
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 12:38:36 AM
Putting Green to Values and introducing Mixed Economy does mean having to rewrite about 20 dialogue lines in script.txt so that factions say suitable things relating to Agenda. I'll do this once I've tested and played more.
It's interesting there are even diplomacy messages commending and expressing dislike for the Future SEs. Never got to see any of them in normal gameplay because so few factions had Future SE agendas, or the game would be over before then.
It's even hinted that Thought Control should maybe give negative research.
#SOCIAL3CAT3BAD2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, it is a terrible waste of human potential for
you to be the sole controller of your populace. Think of the
brilliant researchers and mighty warriors you will never
discover due to the quelling of all creative thinking. Please
re-think these policies before it is too late."
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 01:33:28 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 13, 2020, 01:39:37 PM
Quote
It's even hinted that Thought Control should maybe give negative research.
I always give my thought control negative research. I usually buff it with a point of +industry or something just because its so weak.
The only problem I have with the current draft is Police state and mixed just seem to take to long to get to with random research.
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 04:43:41 PM
Doctrine:Loyalty has a rather low priority for all but conquer priority at 3. Which is still only moderate (3, 0, 2, 2)
Adaptive Economics likewise is only prioritized for build priority at 5. (0, 1, 5, 2)
Edit: Mixed should logically be moved to IndAuto, as OP as that tech already is (and it's what Wealth had originally anyways). Because it requires FM and Planned techs as direct prereqs. I brought in a few by one tech, Fundamentalism, Power, Knowledge.
I'll have to play and see if Planned and Mixed are good enough. Often for mixed it seems the EFFIC cancels the ECONOMY. Planned feels like a hard downside. Maybe not too bad in Police State or Power with non-lethal methods control. Green is probably always okay, even +1 SUPPORT is like +1 INDUSTRY (or better) until midgame.
Post by: vonbach on May 13, 2020, 08:49:26 PM
Besides I want to test them faster. I'll move them myself.
Have you ever thought of renaming knowledge to something like Progress? It just seems to fit better.
Post by: Nexii on May 13, 2020, 11:28:05 PM
I've sort of considered just reverting all my SE labels except Mixed because in the end they're very similar ideas to the originals. Though I may rewrite the societal descriptions to be accurate. Re-doing the AI speech will take a bit of creativity. Mixed economy would propose to be more balanced, egalitarian, and promote population growth/well-being. Planned will have to promote industry rather than population growth as before.
Planned would be degraded as oppressive and controlling. Free Market as exploitative and wasteful. Mixed, I'm less sure. Perhaps an idealistic, impure, tepid or mongrel economy from the viewpoints of Free Market and Planned.
Some of the Green benefits and insults can be recycled (pun intended). But they'll have to change a bit too.
I worry a bit whether Planned and Mixed are 'good enough' compared to Free Market. They might need a little bit of a boost or penalty lessening
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 12:19:04 AM
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, -PLANET
Mixed, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --PLANET
Green might become the opposite of Free Market
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Seems to work for the AI choosing everything like it should
Post by: vonbach on May 14, 2020, 02:45:06 AM
Its a good alternate path to capitalism or communism.
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 04:03:09 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 14, 2020, 06:17:04 AM
Maybe its the way I terraform but I usually don't have this much trouble.
Quote
I wonder if the EFFIC bonuses and PLANET penalties are in the right place. Might also be a question of which types of development are worst on PLANET.
The big question is do you want to go for realism or gameplay?
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 12:18:57 PM
What do you normally run for economics? I feel like Planned and Green are not that good in the base set. Planned is -2 EFFIC, Green cripples GROWTH for +2 EFFIC which doesn't even come close to +2 ECON. Planned might be situationally used for booms and that's about it.
I think that a lot of it is that forests are low energy, 1 raw energy per square isn't much. A drone costs 2 energy (modded) just to control with PSYCH. And most psych facilities aren't a lot better. The weakness of farm/solar on land was painfully obvious when I made boreholes & hybrid forest take more tech. So I buffed farm/solar a bit and nerfed forests a bit, to make it more of a decision. Dry areas get forests, rainy areas get farm/solar. Rocky areas get mines to crawl, although crawling nutrients is usually better.
Right now I've modded the following:
IndAuto - Echelon, Crawlers, unlocks both energy and minerals (to go with the borehole quote, but you can't build them... implies using borehole cluster I guess)
EcoEng - Condensor (might put this a little earlier, I did nerf them to be +1N instead of +50%N). But EcoEng does need something.
EnvEcon - Tree Farm, Aquafarm and Soil Enrichers, Weather Paradigm (+1N for all terrain types)
EcoEng2 - Hybrid Forest, Trunkline, Thermocline, Boreholes, Raise/Lower (only now do you get super high energy)
Forests increased to 8 turns
Enrichers reduced to 4 turns
Mines reduced to 4 turns
Echelons reduced to 8 turns
An earlier unlock makes sea tidals very good too, consider those. Even without unlock 2/0/2 is okay.
Post by: lolada on May 14, 2020, 01:12:28 PM
So I'll just spam some thoughts if anyone modding find them interesting:
1. EFFICIENCY
Police State - it has -2 Efficiency - this is really no go unless at very beginning...
Planned - also -2 Efficiency same issue..
Now Yang ignore these bonuses which usually makes him the best AI from what i can observe. I don't think any choices should give -2 EFF, since it ruins AI. Player can do around it. Then it would go same to limit +EFF. Having lots of +EFF is fun, -EFF is anti-fun for player.. for AI it ruins them. So generally going more + less - is better for gameplay.
This -2 malus also makes you not ever want to pick these choices unless you can balance it with some +EFF source. Efficiency is really important for Drone handling in big factions, i don't want reduced EFF just for that.
GROWTH is similar, but at least its capped with drones. I see most modders limit choices to +1 and it seems fine. Pop booming looks OP to me.
2. RESEARCH
Fundamentalism - why does it need to have -2 Research for its benefits.. AI would do much better with -1. As player i do pick it anyway because Research is really not that important once you have Probe Teams. But before that it really shuts off any AI that picks it.
Knowledge - Here you have really op choice as it has +RESEARCH and + EFF in single pick.. and penalty is - Probe eghm. If anything will have +2 Res +1 Eff it should have -2 IND.. i don't think -2 ECO is that bad.
3. (minus) SUPPORT
Democracy: -2 SUPPORT - i don't want this picked until i am close to finishing expansion on main continent. Primarily due to loss of minerals in new bases. Later its like obvious best choice. AI also seems dumb enough to build ton of units and lose all its minerals. So i would go light with any - SUPPORT.
4. INDUSTRY - its such OP stat
That for example make Wealth great choice regardless of ECO bonus. Power is then that much worse and bad choice. -2 industry is such appalling penalty that it shouldn't be anywhere in SE table. One could maybe place -1 IND in green and -1 in Power so if you want to stack -industry have it that way ^^. Same goes for + IND.. +1 should be likely max.. unless its balanced with something heavy like -2 EFF but thats vicious balance circle
ECONOMY - on the other hand is also great + stat but not that bad - stat; and Wealth, Free market are much better balanced in vanilla than some other choices.
5. POLICE.. I'd maybe want to see removed those pacifist drones completely from game. It also mostly ruins AI. Free Market could have its -5 just to remove use of police out of the picture
6. PLANET need extra modding or is two weak stat in general.. modding to PSI combat or + to native lifecycle.. these are heavy changes
7. Morale - too abundant imo .. it would be interesting to mod Command Centers to +1.. other sources as well to make SE choices more important. Then some SE choices could go to +2, it would make them interesting to pick..
8. Probe - also doesn't matter that much because probe gets morale from techs - removing that makes +PROBE much more interesting. Minus probe is kind of broken, -25% and -50% mind-probe cost is broken.. those numbers are way too large and bases cheap to steal. Especially when you get all the units with them as well. But probe teams are op in general.
On future society choices: they are broken as hell and come way too late in vanilla. Having them way earlier looks much better. And balanced in that sense to avoid breaking the game instantly. That was the point i presume in vanilla - they are meant to be op.. but for longer gameplay balance matters more and having the chance to acutally play with these choices.. there's no point getting them when game is already won.
Hope you find it useful -_-.
Post by: vonbach on May 14, 2020, 02:53:25 PM
Quote
1. EFFICIENCYPolice state penalties were always too severe for what you get.
Police State - it has -2 Efficiency - this is really no go unless at very beginning...
Planned - also -2 Efficiency same issue..
Quote
2. RESEARCHAgreed.
Fundamentalism - why does it need to have -2 Research for its benefits.. AI would do much better with -1. As player i do pick it anyway because Research is really not that important once you have Probe Teams. But before that it really shuts off any AI that picks it.
Quote
3. (minus) SUPPORTAgreed. Thats one reason I like to limit or remove penalties entirely.
Democracy: -2 SUPPORT - i don't want this picked until i am close to finishing expansion on main continent. Primarily due to loss of minerals in new bases. Later its like obvious best choice. AI also seems dumb enough to build ton of units and lose all its minerals. So i would go light with any - SUPPORT.
Quote
4. INDUSTRY - its such OP statYes it is.
Quote
ECONOMY - on the other hand is also great + stat but not that bad - stat; and Wealth, Free market are much better balanced in vanilla than some other choices.Yes wealth is OP it always was. One thing I have noticed is if your playing an economy heavy faction the AI sometimes will simply refuse to trade with you.
Quote
6. PLANET need extra modding or is two weak stat in general.. modding to PSI combat or + to native lifecycle.. these are heavy changesThese choices really aren't that important and never were. Morale is nice but isn't necessary. Planet is mostly nice if you want to spam worms or keep them off your formers and probe is almost useless.
7. Morale - too abundant imo .. it would be interesting to mod Command Centers to +1.. other sources as well to make SE choices more important. Then some SE choices could go to +2, it would make them interesting to pick..
8. Probe - also doesn't matter that much because probe gets morale from techs - removing that makes +PROBE much more interesting. Minus probe is kind of broken, -25% and -50% mind-probe cost is broken.. those numbers are way too large and bases cheap to steal. Especially when you get all the units with them as well. But probe teams are op in general.
Quote
On future society choices: they are broken as hell and come way too late in vanilla. Having them way earlier looks much better.I have them come much earlier myself just because I want to see them earlier. I want to see future societies in a future game.
Quote
What do you normally run for economics? I feel like Planned and Green are not that good in the base set. Planned is -2 EFFIC, Green cripples GROWTH for +2 EFFIC which doesn't even come close to +2 ECON. Planned might be situationally used for booms and that's about it.I usually run Green if I have the choice. I hate planned and never run it if I have a choice.
I think that a lot of it is that forests are low energy, 1 raw energy per square isn't much. A drone costs 2 energy (modded) just to control with PSYCH. And most psych facilities aren't a lot better. The weakness of farm/solar on land was painfully obvious when I made boreholes & hybrid forest take more tech. So I buffed farm/solar a bit and nerfed forests a bit, to make it more of a decision. Dry areas get forests, rainy areas get farm/solar. Rocky areas get mines to crawl, although crawling nutrients is usually better.
I think Its probably my terraforming strategy. I like my forest spam. Thats probably the issue.
Post by: Nexii on May 14, 2020, 04:33:52 PM
Yea the bottom range for EFFIC should have been -1. That equates to Anarchy in Civilization 2. I think they just kind of messed up on that. Though I suppose allowing it to go a bit lower is nice for tiny/small maps.
Anyways resummarizing what I've been trying out.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT
Democratic, EthCalc, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, -PLANET
Mixed, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --PLANET
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +PROBE, -POLICE
Green, CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
None, None,
AI Controlled, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 14, 2020, 11:41:58 PM
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 12:12:32 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 15, 2020, 12:18:21 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 01:23:46 AM
Wealth was sort of just the easiest to remove because there's already an abundance of IND. And Build sort of has its whole entire tier so to speak in Economics. Letting Free Drones get +5 IND so early would be a bit much. So then Planned would have to go back to other benefits. I also had the issue with it that it was very good for +1 ECON factions, could run Wealth and avoid Free Market's downsides.
Post by: vonbach on May 15, 2020, 01:46:40 AM
Quote
It could, I mean all of the four game objectives could be values (conquer=power, knowledge=discover, explore=green, build=wealth) if you think about it. But then the research bonuses of Knowledge would have to be put elsewhere.I usually remove the Ind bonuses until the future societies. Planned gets something else and wealth gets something else like growth or more effic.
Wealth was sort of just the easiest to remove because there's already an abundance of IND. And Build sort of has its whole entire tier so to speak in Economics. Letting Free Drones get +5 IND so early would be a bit much. So then Planned would have to go back to other benefits. I also had the issue with it that it was very good for +1 ECON factions, could run Wealth and avoid Free Market's downsides.
I just think it fits better replacing knowledge if your going to replace it at all. Green economics can work but you have to convince the AI to take it.
I was trying something on my own for a "balanced" economic tree
Free Market ++ECONOMY ++EFFIC --POLICE --PLANET
Planned +ECONOMY +SUPPORT -TALENT maybe something else like like+PROBE or Police or even +talent at the cost of -growth
Autarky/green ++GROWTH ++EFFIC +planet -econ
I might get rid of the growth so it looks like this
++effic ++planet +economy -ind?
The idea is to make all the economic systems "ok" at making money but Free Market the clear winner.
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 05:18:45 AM
+2 ECON is just so strong, but I didn't think -5 POLICE was fitting. I think Free Market does need something steeper, negative PLANET and MORALE perhaps in combination. Make it actually hard to fight native life. Free Market was just the best in all situations really...
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 05:51:42 PM
Planned I have as granting a bit of control, by POLICE. It is a command economy after all. Power gets PROBE now rather than Knowledge. I suppose PROBE has benefits beyond just tech stealing, it's probably more suitable in Power. Though I go back and forth on it a lot. Knowledge got EFFIC to compensate. Back to Wealth again, more in its root definition of 'well-being' rather than just money and things. As your population is spoiled they require more incentive to fight (-SUPPORT) and become more greedy (-PROBE). Might be a bit of a stretch, I'm not sure. Going for unique penalties that keep Knowledge, Green, Wealth at least pickable by AIs with that Agenda.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT
Democratic, EthCalc, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --MORALE, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, -PROBE, -SUPPORT
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 15, 2020, 11:01:34 PM
Democratic, InfNet, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +ECONOMY, +SUPPORT, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Green, DocFlex, +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, DocLoy, ++MORALE, +POLICE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, --POLICE
None, None,
Cybernetic, Algor, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --POLICE
Eudaimonic, EnvEcon, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC, -PROBE, -MORALE
Thought Control, PlaEcon, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, ++PROBE, +INDUSTRY, --RESEARCH
This is what I've been messing around with so far in my own game. I might change out the Police State penalties to -research
and the Fundamentalist to --probe.
Post by: Nexii on May 15, 2020, 11:10:14 PM
Post by: vonbach on May 15, 2020, 11:44:55 PM
Quote
FM definitely is less powerful when there's other 2 ECON options. The options look balanced, there are quite a few to pick from. Does the high ECON lead to fast games? Or do you play with tech stagnation?Well I play on huge or larger maps. I'm tempted to give FM something else besides EFFIC like +IND but I think that would be a bit OP especially with the relatively light penalties.
As for the high Econ options it couldn't hurt the AI. I might already have tech stagnation on.
Post by: vonbach on May 16, 2020, 12:05:54 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 16, 2020, 12:50:07 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 16, 2020, 02:04:53 AM
Quote
I haven't seen that bug before.I think its what happens when you put on "pods only near landing sights" option. It must shut off the unity ruins benefits.
I normally never play like that.
Post by: Nexii on May 16, 2020, 03:38:44 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 16, 2020, 05:50:34 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, +PROBE, +SUPPORT, +EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, +++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --MORALE, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -EFFIC
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, --PROBE
None, None,
Cybernetic, MindMac, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, -GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET
Thought Control, CentPsi, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 16, 2020, 10:46:26 PM
Police State, Chaos, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, +ECONOMY, +SUPPORT, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Green, DocFlex, +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, DocLoy, ++MORALE, +POLICE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, --POLICE
None, None,
Cybernetic, Algor, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --POLICE
Eudaimonic, EnvEcon, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC, -PROBE, -MORALE
Thought Control, PlaEcon, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, ++PROBE, +INDUSTRY, --RESEARCH
I was thinking of moving green to knowledge and making green economics Autarky and changing it like this.
Autarky +2GROWTH +ECON -EFFIC
Green +2 PLANET +2 EFFIC +1 RESEARCH -INDUSTRY
Post by: Nexii on May 17, 2020, 03:32:17 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 01:12:23 AM
Quote
Fund and Power might be a little better than the others.
Power really doesn't have that good of bonuses though all of them can be negated with unit upgrades.
Fund still has the research penalty for the growth. I might add a point of -probe.
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Economy options I like the idea of, but for me it would require reworking GreenSupport fits more or less so does industry but thats a bit harsh.
The other idea is to add a plus growth plus economy in the place of green
and move green to values. Or keep green as economy and add growth instead of effic.
maybe ++pla ++growth +econ -industry.
Oh one thing i found out with Bvanevery's clean syth units you can keep the clean reactor very early in the game by simply using that unit as a template.
Allowing you to use clean units from the start.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 02:14:40 AM
Anyways providing a few options to get GROWTH is good. Green or Wealth make the most sense to me. A lot will depend whether you want all factions to be able to boom or not. Those with aversions to your growth options will have a harder time.
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 12:15:54 PM
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Clean from the start negates any need for the SUPPORT SE ever. My philosophy is to try to provide more choice rather than less.
It's more for the AI than anything else. To keep it from clogging its entire support with units.
Thats why I kept it.
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Anyways providing a few options to get GROWTH is good. Green or Wealth make the most sense to me.I'm tempted to add a few more just because. Like maybe a point of Growth to another in the economic tier.
Wealth would be an idea but you'd have the AI picking all three.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 08:05:06 PM
Generally the AI won't pick options that tank MORALE. Only if it gets them +2 ECONOMY and it's not war time. Sometimes I noted it will prefer RESEARCH over MORALE if it is at +2 ECONOMY.
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 08:55:10 PM
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Yea could always give all AI factions +3 SUPPORT too haha. There was that old idea, where you boost up the factions you play against.Don't laugh thats actually an idea. +2 support across the board isn't a bad idea considering the way the AI spams units.
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Generally the AI won't pick options that tank MORALE. Only if it gets them +2 ECONOMY and it's not war time. Sometimes I noted it will prefer RESEARCH over MORALE if it is at +2 ECONOMY.
Thats nice to know. I know the AI likes morale for some reason so I was light on the morale penalties.
Post by: bvanevery on May 18, 2020, 09:05:43 PM
Clean from the start negates any need for the SUPPORT SE ever.
False. It takes longer to produce a Clean unit. When a Clean unit gets killed, it's more of a production loss, due to its embedded cost. Currently I have Clean units as 50% longer to produce. I can go to 100%. I have not received enough player feedback to feel a need to do it.
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My philosophy is to try to provide more choice rather than less.
Your philosophy should be to examine the consequences of different game design decisions, in excruciating detail, before passing judgment.
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Yea could always give all AI factions +3 SUPPORT too haha.
There is no technical means to accomplish this for the AI only, in a *.txt only mod.
You can do anything you like in a binary mod. Such mods are also technically illegal to distribute. It isn't stopping you or the other binary modders, but I intend to make money selling games in a few years. With my mod as an advertizement for my design skill. Hopefully drum up some customers. So the legality of what can be technically accomplished, is more important to me, than perhaps to you. I don't want my future business interest in selling possibly "a SMAC-like game" to have any legal exposure.
Scient's OpenSMACX project could end that pickle someday, maybe. Not sure what the legalities of reverse engineering a binary by decompiling it are, in various jurisdictions. But the point is moot because the project won't finish in a timeframe that matters to my own commercial development. *.txt modding is what I can legally put in front of a player as a complete $0 product now.
In newer work, SUPPORT simply wouldn't be done. It's not a good game mechanic. The later Civ titles dumped it. Units just cost money to support, not minerals.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 09:15:51 PM
Post by: bvanevery on May 18, 2020, 09:30:20 PM
You could legally ship a tool that will perform the file modifications automatically. However, there's no legal way to integrate it into the game menus. They'd have to go outside of the game to run it. I think in the real world, players won't do it. YMMV, and you're welcome to take the risk of writing and distributing such a tool. If you even cared about the legal separations.
I'm slightly sorry to sound this dismissive, but we're not even talking about the same level of design professionalism here, on some of these things. It's one thing to make 'product' for modders who like to hack around with their own *.txt files, and quite another to ship product to players.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 09:39:47 PM
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 11:13:19 PM
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False. It takes longer to produce a Clean unit. When a Clean unit gets killed, it's more of a production loss, due to its embedded cost. Currently I have Clean units as 50% longer to produce. I can go to 100%. I have not received enough player feedback to feel a need to do it.
I'll cheerfully pay more for a clean unit. They're worth more in the long run.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 11:28:45 PM
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 11:38:42 PM
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Yea for any unit that isn't offensive military, like formers or base defenders, Clean is great. Pays for itself extremely fast.There are some things I kept from bvanevery's mod and thats the clean formers and the synth garrisons. They are so useful. I like to put it on everything I can though.
Its minerals saved later.
Post by: Nexii on May 18, 2020, 11:45:56 PM
Post by: vonbach on May 18, 2020, 11:49:07 PM
Another wishlist thing but it would have made a bit more sense if some abilities like Clean only worked when you had +PLANET SE rating. Non-lethal methods kind of works like this, it's only good if you can make use at your current POLICE rating. I forget if Trained was affected by MORALE, I think it isn't. Most of the rest are just combat things which would apply all of the time.
I never really thought about that one. Here's a question. Does the AI build clean units on its own?
Post by: bvanevery on May 19, 2020, 12:11:15 AM
It's really not that much work to copy over a few files before a new game.
I've been asked to "tone down" my level of disagreement about such matters. What I will say, is that this doesn't rise to the level of professional software release. I don't just mod, that's not my goal. I'm trying to build a reputation. When you build for yourself a reputation that you don't do "fit and finish", then your reputation only goes so far.
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"Monster" factions are popular, people want a challenge
Not relevant to our previous disagreement. But for the record, I really hate those things. As well as all the 4X TBS games that implement "difficulty" by keeping the AI dumb, but cranking up the AI resource bonuses to Eleven. I've "forcibly retired" plenty of units over my many years of gaming. I don't want or need that. SMAC does it some. I mean, I do play on Transcend and couldn't possibly consider playing on a lower difficulty level with the stock binary. I've squeezed as much AI performance out of the stock binary as I can. It required embracing things like a thorough understanding of Clean Reactors and SUPPORT.
Post by: Nexii on May 19, 2020, 12:12:49 AM
Post by: bvanevery on May 19, 2020, 12:22:17 AM
Another wishlist thing but it would have made a bit more sense if some abilities like Clean only worked when you had +PLANET SE rating. Non-lethal methods kind of works like this, it's only good if you can make use at your current POLICE rating.
The problem with this kind of fine tuning and making game rules 'picky', is that AI doesn't get written to handle it. I had to change my Democratic from -2 POLICE to -1 POLICE, because I couldn't get the AI to know when it needed to build Non-Lethal Methods units. So instead I made all early governments able to use such units, because the POLICE penalty was never lower than -1. If some factions then had trouble with my Knowledge, which is -2 POLICE, I'm like eh, can only do so much. They'll just have to suffer in dumbness. At least I delayed such dumbness, and plenty of factions would never have an issue because they wouldn't pick my Knowledge or Cybernetic. Although, in my 1.43 it will be Eudaimonic instead.
If you're a binary modder, in principle, you can write the code to handle the case. In practice, did you do it? Did you kick your own patched version of Thinker Mod out the door, or get it to adopt your patch? I'm not clear on just how "open sourcey" anyone's treating the project. Since I'm not planning on participating in that project myself.
This is the general form of the problem of why AI is bad in 4X games. People think up neato game design rules to implement, and no AI person comes along to handle that.
Post by: bvanevery on May 19, 2020, 12:26:17 AM
Does the AI build clean units on its own?
Yes, but, in the stock game it cannot be accused of being a conscientiously good designer in that regard. I've seen it hand me designs, and use designs, that made me think "why did you bother" ? One possible excuse is that on Transcend, the AI may be paying such lowered unit costs, that it doesn't really have to be careful about designing anything.
When I last played straight Thinker Mod more than a year ago, it did design some units better for some purposes. I can't comment greatly on what it managed to do, since it's been awhile, but for instance it would make intelligent use of a Fusion Reactor if it had that capability. This is something I can't get the stock binary to do. Probe teams, for instance, kinda have to suck as fission.
If one is willing to require Scient's patch, that particular problem can be solved with predefined Fusion unit designs. But I'm not willing to require Scient's patch.
Post by: vonbach on May 19, 2020, 01:28:26 AM
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I've been asked to "tone down" my level of disagreement about such matters. What I will say, is that this doesn't rise to the level of professional software release. I don't just mod, that's not my goal. I'm trying to build a reputation. When you build for yourself a reputation that you don't do "fit and finish", then your reputation only goes so far.
I understand the desire for professionalism believe me. I'm a painter and there are projects I'll want to do over again just because I can do better.
Post by: bvanevery on May 19, 2020, 01:58:31 AM
Post by: Nexii on May 19, 2020, 02:29:18 AM
Like I said elsewhere, I think AI was probably limited a lot at the time. Not just the algorithms but it has to make calculations very fast. For example, chess engines today are amazingly strong. But even they take time to play at their very best. And that's just one piece on a board, not dozens of cities and hundreds of units. A human playing a 4x game isn't going to sit there and wait 5 minutes for the AI to calculate all the best moves. Chess, sure, because that's just expected.
I think you'll see 4x AI improve a lot more over the next 20 years. Self-play neural networks are getting very strong at this sort of problem.
Post by: bvanevery on May 19, 2020, 02:42:35 AM
I think you'll see 4x AI improve a lot more over the next 20 years. Self-play neural networks are getting very strong at this sort of problem.
At the risk of derailing the thread, what's the evidence for this in the 4X TBS genre? I've heard about such work aimed at Starcraft, but that's a RTS. Humans are limited about what they can decide in a RTS and it's a rather scaled down game compared to 4X. 4X has piles of gewgaws. I have no confidence in AIs solving it. The piles of gewgaws arise from commercial production realities, the lack of game design and artist constraint.
Neural nets would be relevant to Collectible Card Games as well. That is the genre where 'designers' heap rules upon rules upon rules, without any restraint. They're selling more decks of cards. Now there are card game genres that are a bit more restrained, like Dominion, where you buy big standard sets of cards as "expansion packs". It's not about open ended collecting and deck building. Don't know what a neural net is going to do with that either. But at least there's some kind of horizon, for when the last game rule has come into play.
I will achieve stronger 4X AI in commercial reality, using only case based reasoning, long before any of these people with "well we don't know what to do, so we'll train a neural net to do everything" approaches. The way I personally can do that, is having the discipline to integrate AI as part of the required design, production, and testing pipeline. 'Cuz I'm 1 guy, and I can be a fascist like that.
Steve Jobs taught us all how to vertically integrate design. How not to be "corporate stupid" about what your business model is.
Post by: Nexii on May 19, 2020, 03:28:26 AM
Post by: bvanevery on May 20, 2020, 02:11:09 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 20, 2020, 12:15:42 PM
I''m going to try moving green to values. This is what I'm working on so far.
Police State, Chaos, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Democratic, InfNet, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, +EFFIC, +GROWTH, ---PLANET, --POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, +ECONOMY, +SUPPORT, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Autarky, DocFlex, +ECONOMY, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, -SUPPORT
Survival, None,
Power, DocLoy, ++MORALE, +POLICE, +SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Green, Integ, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --MORALE, --POLICE
None, None,
Cybernetic, Algor, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, +POLICE, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic, EnvEcon, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, +PLANET, -PROBE, -MORALE
Thought Control, PlaEcon, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, ++PROBE, +INDUSTRY, --RESEARCH
Post by: Nexii on May 20, 2020, 01:44:12 PM
Swapping 2 across categories would mean rewriting about 20 from scratch if you care about that detail. Because the dialogues are often written from the perspective of one SE thinking another is bad. For example the reason power dislikes green, green dislikes wealth, and vice versa. Then the same for Autarky against the other Economics.
Also theres the descriptions in the helpx.txt starting at #HELPSOC00. I've been modding too much to bother but once I settle I'll probably get around to it. Make sure to back these up before you change them
Post by: vonbach on May 20, 2020, 03:30:33 PM
Post by: Geo on May 20, 2020, 05:04:33 PM
Post by: vonbach on May 21, 2020, 12:43:16 AM
Some wonders offer benefits or mitigate negative modifiers to certain SE choices. IIRC, these are linked to specific positions in the SE tabel. So you might find that for instance the Longevity Vaccine (less drones or +50% economy), Network Backbone (Cybernetic negative modifier), and Cloning Vats (Power/Thought Control negative modifiers) act not as exptected.
Is it tied to the name or the position in the tier? Do you know?
Post by: Nexii on May 21, 2020, 12:48:51 AM
Post by: vonbach on May 21, 2020, 12:59:43 AM
SPs are tied to the position. This won't really affect swapping Green with Wealth much, aside from that Longevity Vaccine will get the benefit it had for GreenI was hoping that was the case thanks.
Post by: Nexii on May 21, 2020, 05:12:07 AM
Pros:
- AI likes all choices a lot except Police State which may need a buff somehow. I feel like it's super good with Planned though? Oddly going negative ECON isn't viewed as a huge deal by the AI even though it also tries to hit +2.
- 2 choices to get +2 ECON.
Cons:
- Two combinations aren't that viable. Free Market + Power, and Green + Wealth specifically. At least until Eudaimonic. But logically I feel like those combinations were always a bit strange.
- Negative effic and industry aren't represented. Though I've kind of moved away from having these. The former because the AI will tank its EFFIC way more than it should, and the latter because the AI needs a huge bonus to want to lower industry.
Notes -
Only Democratic can boom in this set, no easy booming without Golden Ages. It's a sort of middle ground to test out. It impacts faction design a lot since any Democratic averse or -GROWTH faction cannot boom until Eudaimonic. I didn't like the idea of spreading Growth because then it's just more aversions that prevent a faction from booming. As well it means that any faction with at least 0 ECON can get to +2 ECON no matter their aversions. I've concluded that +2 GROWTH is about as good as +2 ECON and thus Democratic has a fairly bad downside. I may need to buff Police State / Fundamentalist to have more staying power.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, ++PROBE
Democratic, EthCalc, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, ----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, +MORALE, ++SUPPORT, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, -MORALE, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, --ECONOMY
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, +MORALE, --ECONOMY
Knowledge, Integ, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, -POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, --PROBE
None, None,
Cybernetic, MindMac, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET
Thought Control, CentPsi, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on May 24, 2020, 08:54:53 PM
Post by: Nexii on May 26, 2020, 05:04:13 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None, None
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, ++SUPPORT, --RESEARCH
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET
Green, Ecology, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -POLICE
Survival, None,
Power, AdapDoc, ++SUPPORT, ++MORALE, --ECONOMY
Knowledge, Brain, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, AdapEco, ++ECONOMY, --MORALE, --PROBE
None, None,
Cybernetic, MindMac, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ++PLANET
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
All politics are tier 1, except Democracy is tier 2
All economics are tier 2
All values are tier 3
Cybernetic is tier 7
Eudaimonic is tier 10
Thought Control is tier 9
Also the lower tiers are much easier to get to, tier 2 techs only have 1 prereq and tier 3 techs only have 3 prereqs. So it shouldn't take forever to get SEs.
Post by: Nexii on May 28, 2020, 01:53:53 AM
- Fundamentalist got +1 GROWTH instead of +1 MORALE. More of a family focus but not having the freedom and flourishing of Democracy.
- Free Market got -2 SUPPORT instead of -1 MORALE. Either works but I can see the increase price of military as realistic, more mercenary armies. And needed to vary penalties.
- Green got -1 POLICE instead of -2 ECONOMY to boost it. Green tends to be more freedom loving/anarchist, stock Gaia even got -1 POLICE.
- Power got +2 MORALE up from +1. -2 ECONOMY is quite painful.
Green and Knowledge have quite mild penalties. But I also consider their benefits much weaker than the alternatives. All pairings work a bit better with this setup, except maybe FM+Power. Even that nets you MORALE at the cost of PLANET. Thinker AI seems to value PLANET, EFFIC a lot more so Green actually gets picked by non-Green factions. I think even in the base AI this set should work decently. It doesn't hate -POLICE that much.
Post by: vonbach on May 29, 2020, 07:27:43 PM
Post by: Nexii on June 05, 2020, 05:47:04 PM
A few minor changes I made:
Democracy penalty reduced to -2 POLICE
Fundamentalism now gives 2 GROWTH but no longer gives EFFIC
Knowledge penalty increased to -2 POLICE
Makes Fundamentalism a second option for booming. Thinking about giving Police State 1-2 SUPPORT at the cost of 1-2 EFFIC. I don't want it to be too similar to Fundamentalism though, and EFFIC is much like losing research. So perhaps going back to giving PS -2 GROWTH. My worry was it might put some factions to -3, though I suppose Creches are a thing.
Post by: Nexii on December 19, 2020, 12:58:47 AM
Some design points:
- I tried to represent every penalty. POLICE and MORALE are represented twice as they have more interesting and less punishing negative breakpoints.
- In many places, keeping with original bonuses and penalties. Generally keeping to +2/+2/-2, except for the very powerful SE effects and Future Societies.
- Green changed a lot, more research bonus due to understanding/learning from Planet. INDUSTRY to me felt more fitting of a downside than GROWTH, sustainable materials means less overall production.
- Similarly Power gets negative GROWTH. A focus on military over well-being, where only citizens can typically raise children.
- Knowledge gets POLICE penalty due to a more open society.
- Cybernetic changed to be more industrial for benefits giving SUPPORT and INDUSTRY. Penalty to PROBE due to vulnerability of AI automation and cultural erosion.
- Eudaimonic gets PLANET instead of INDUSTRY. I see this more in line with a harmonic utopia than producing more things.
- Thought Control penalty is RESEARCH. As in 1984 progress stagnates. SUPPORT penalty seemed odd to me as such societies typically had large militaries.
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++GROWTH, --SUPPORT
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, ---POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, ---RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on December 19, 2020, 12:41:33 PM
The change to Green is something new and not bad at all. I might steal this myself.
Fundamentalist seems weak especially for --2 research. If it were me I'd switch the growth to Fundamentalist and probe to Democratic.
Power seems to have harsh penalties.
Knowledge seems to be a must pick. Especially with Police State and Green.
The future societies seem to be pretty balanced. Except the penalties for Cybernetic seem a bit light and Thought control a little too harsh.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2020, 03:38:36 PM
Probe belongs with Police State, so that's where I put it.
Post by: vonbach on December 19, 2020, 03:46:48 PM
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The Russians are hacking the USA en masse right now.Lol. Turn of MSNBC.
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What evidence do you have that the USA is doing a far bigger and better job hacking the Russians?The CIA has been rigging elections for years. They just did it here.
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Probe bonuses as a Democratic thing doesn't make any sense at all.Probe bonuses don't make sense at all frankly because its a worthless bonus.
Theres pretty much no benefit to having it all. You just kill the probe teams.
Post by: bvanevery on December 19, 2020, 04:19:24 PM
The CIA has been rigging elections for years. They just did it here.
You seriously believe all the "election, muhhaa, rigged" stuff? Well let's be frank. All the courts dismissed the [Sleezebag] campaign's claims as totally lacking evidence. The problem with conspiracy theories is you keep on having to posit larger and larger number of people that are "in on it", to the point of reaching absurdity. So, you'd have us believe that our entire court system is part of the rigging too.
Here is why [Sleezebag] makes the claims he does. He's a narcissist, he can't handle losing, it's the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist. He also makes money when people contribute to his "rigged defense fund". He's gonna milk this schtick as many years as he can.
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Probe bonuses don't make sense at all frankly because its a worthless bonus.
Theres pretty much no benefit to having it all. You just kill the probe teams.
Armored probe teams make the bonuses a bit more meaningful. In fact it can rise to the level of an exploit, in the case of invulnerable probe ships that the poor stupid AI attempts to attack.
Higher PROBE also makes it cost more money to mind control stuff. That does matter in practice. If you can get it up to +3, then you're immune to mind control.
It's not a great bonus, but it's not a worthless bonus either.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on December 19, 2020, 04:24:10 PM
Post by: vonbach on December 19, 2020, 06:16:08 PM
Post by: BU Admin on December 19, 2020, 08:52:49 PM
Post by: Nexii on December 20, 2020, 01:28:59 AM
But then Fundamentalism and Power have identical benefits if PROBE is swapped with SUPPORT
Fundamentalism could get 2 GROWTH 2 SUPPORT, and Democracy 2 EFFIC 2 MORALE. Is MORALE fitting for Democracy though? Citizenry fights harder when they feel they have a say? I could maybe see it a volunteer army being stronger than a conscripted one.
I do agree -3 RESEARCH a bit steep for TC. And Cybernetic gets off kinda light for penalty. Probably speaks more to PROBE needing to be more influential. I think both PROBE and MORALE are more important when defense is boosted up a bit (cheaper armor cost, stronger ECM, stronger AAA). That way probing a base matters and there are more close battles as well.
Post by: vonbach on December 20, 2020, 04:03:31 AM
Probe is pretty much a non stat as far as I'm concerned.
I've always been of the opinion that Fundamentalist should have growth bonuses.
I've put Probe with PS and Put the Support with planned before. The problem is it leaves
PS weak. I usually just dump Probe in thought control.
Post by: Nexii on December 21, 2020, 04:49:21 AM
I think PROBE fits Fundamentalist as well. It represents a sort of cultural resilience to brainwashing / propaganda / mind control. More than how it's represented (probe teams).
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++MORALE, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, ---POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, +INDUSTRY, +ECONOMY, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2020, 06:30:38 AM
Yea PS without SUPPORT just isn't very good. Those extra police sentinels need it.
SUPPORT is only relevant in the early part of the game, before minerals are abundant from factories and tree farms. I don't give any SUPPORT with my PS. However I do have Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game, at extra cost. SUPPORT is still an advantage at the beginning because you can make units faster. I also gave the Hive +1 POLICE, making it very easy for them to get +3 POLICE with PS. Units doing 2x police duty is quite valuable and definitely worth paying SUPPORT for. Other factions can get the same effect by completing the Ascetic Virtues.
Post by: vonbach on December 21, 2020, 02:34:59 PM
Minus two research for ++Growth is just too weak for fund.
With morale and Effic Democracy is almost an auto pick.
Democracy should get a bonus to economy or something.
Planet is another bonus I always found weak unless your trying to fungus farm
or use mindworms.
One idea Ive toyed with is removing growth from planned and giving it to Free Market.
The idea being to give unfettered growth at the cost of instability.
Planned would get reduced penalties probably just minus effic and a bonus to economy.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2020, 02:45:06 PM
The one thing that helps the AI out more than anything else is handing out support.
In the stock binary, that is true. However I solved that problem by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game. My stock AI doesn't run itself out of SUPPORT so easily because it builds things like Clean Synth Sentinels over and over again.
A Thinker or Will To Power code base has the option of dealing with AI SUPPORT problems in other ways, but I don't know what's actually been done.
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Planet is another bonus I always found weak unless your trying to fungus farm
or use mindworms.
I find that a mere +1 PLANET will allow me to capture massive numbers of mindworms and isles, pop massive numbers of supply pods, and bring back dozens of Artifacts. It's so effective as to almost rise to the level of an exploit.
Post by: vonbach on December 21, 2020, 04:52:01 PM
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In the stock binary, that is true. However I solved that problem by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game.The problem is that makes support almost meaningless. I kept the idea of using clean formers and clean syth sentinels.
The computer churns them out like popcorn.
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I find that a mere +1 PLANET will allow me to capture massive numbers of mindworms and isles, pop massive numbers of supply pods, and bring back dozens of Artifacts. It's so effective as to almost rise to the level of an exploit.
The problem is in base game mind worms aren't that good. They're ok and I buffed them with an extra point of movement.
But aside from giving you free units planet doesn't do a lot. Also mindworms are easily countered by decent morale.
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2020, 05:27:53 PM
SUPPORT still has meaning in the early game when mineral outputs are low. It costs 50% more for a Clean Reactor in my mod, and those delays do matter in the early game. Factions that start with +1 SUPPORT do have an advantage.
Mindworms captured aren't that good. They tend to be very spread out over the surface of Planet, as a byproduct of popping all the pods and fighting other mindworms. They do not have the endurance to take over distant enemy territory. They can certainly harass, but without conventional forces to defend ground, mindworms are the tip of a spear that has no body behind it.
Mindworms manufactured by the player are super duper deadly. A player generally does this when they're ready to invade something, such as on rails. They bypass Perimeter Defenses and can take down just about anything that the AI puts on defense.
Mindworms manufactured en masse by the AI, are somewhat annoying and somewhat effective at blunting human player attacks. The stock AI will churn out lots of them in the late game. The main problem is the AI doesn't tend to train them with Biology Labs etc.
Post by: Nexii on December 21, 2020, 09:59:56 PM
PLANET I think is relevant enough. Or can be made more powerful with easy mods like 2 move mindworms or cheaper cost.
PROBE is the hard one to make relevant. Cheaper mind control costs all around might be one idea. I don't have too many other ideas though aside from ridding all the free morale boosts. Cheaper probes would just benefit the defender as much as the probe attacker I'd think. Probes are strong all game but not all that dependent on the morale of the probe team really
Post by: bvanevery on December 21, 2020, 10:15:52 PM
Cheaper mind control costs all around might be one idea.
Oh God please no. Overpowered probe teams is the worst thing about the original game, bar nothing. I've had more rage quits and complete deletions of the game from that, than any other reason. In my mod, which uses the stock binary, I got it down to a dull roar by doubling the cost of all mind control. The Data Angels, Cyborgs, and the Hive are my "probe team centric" factions that all get a 25% discount on the doubled cost. Cyborgs and Hive get +1 PROBE, Data Angels get their traditional +2.
Cyborgs also get Polymorphic Encryption on all units, which oddly enough, I found out won't stop some of my ships from getting bought anyways. They were cheap ships and I could afford to lose them, but I was a bit surprised that my enemies managed it. I wonder how much they paid? They could have blown quite a lot of saved money on it, for all I know.
The Believers don't get any probe bonuses, but they are immune to mind control in my mod. The AI effect of this is when they do take ground from another AI faction, they tend to hold it.
Post by: vonbach on December 22, 2020, 03:05:10 AM
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PROBE is the hard one to make relevant.Probe as a stat is pretty irrelevant. There really isn't a way to make it more so.
I'd just discount it and give a real bonus.
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I think SUPPORT can remain relevant if dual ability units are delayed a bit.
Support is always going to relevant just because of the AI's behavior.
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PLANET I think is relevant enough. Or can be made more powerful with easy mods like 2 move mindworms or cheaper cost.
I wish Planet as a stat gave better bonuses. Like better forest nutrients or fungus farming coming earlier or something like morale or psych.
Post by: Nexii on December 22, 2020, 01:31:39 PM
Post by: vonbach on December 22, 2020, 01:43:21 PM
Are you trying to improv AI performance, make it more realistic or simply change it
to something you like?
Post by: Nexii on December 22, 2020, 06:08:13 PM
Probably right in that anything less than +3 PROBE isn't that helpful. I would say MC immunity is pretty big though.
Differentiating Wealth/Knowledge a bit more.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++MORALE, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, +++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, ---POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, +++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on December 25, 2020, 03:23:57 PM
I'm more concerned with definitions than assigning actual numerical values right now.
So I'm thinking about changing the names to more generic terms.
I'm taking inspiration from Beyond Earth for this.
Authoritarian Progressive Traditionalist
Free Market Regulated market Autarky
Might Knowledge Prosperity
Supremacy Purity Harmony
What does everyone think? Oh and Merry Christmas everyone.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2020, 02:35:48 AM
Supremacy is a repeat of Might. No difference.
Post by: vonbach on December 26, 2020, 12:43:01 PM
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Traditionalist - what if they're traditionally authoritarian?No traditionalist conservative society is not a police state. Authoritarian and a traditionalist are not the same things.
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Supremacy is a repeat of Might.
No it is not supremacy is society based on technical supremacy like out of beyond earth.
While might is military might.
Purity represents a future society based on purity and the pursuit of excellence
Harmony represents a conformist society where harmony and peace is the goal.
Rather than a 1984 thought control society.
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2020, 08:14:14 PM
QuoteTraditionalist - what if they're traditionally authoritarian?No traditionalist conservative society is not a police state.
That reads like a double negative, in which case they would cancel each other out. However, perhaps you meant: "No, a traditionalist conservative society is not a police state."
Frankly I beg to differ. The Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition, for instance, was very much such. Most of the time, organized religion has been used to kill people who utter any kind of heresy. This is how the 'traditions' were maintained, and they were synonymous with Church and State power. There was historically no separation between Church and State, it was whatever the ruler or rulers wanted everyone to believe as part of their propaganda campaigns.
The formal separation of the two, was an Enlightenment idea. That didn't remove traditionalism, clearly, but it did start a long process of lessening the authoritarianism of Theocratic systems.
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Authoritarian and a traditionalist are not the same things.
Like I said, it depends on what your traditions are about. On Earth, we don't have any examples of traditional societies that aren't deeply tied to their religious beliefs. And the large organized societies, have had large organized religions and church power, that was used to stomp on non-believers. That's just how things have been.
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No it is not supremacy is society based on technical supremacy like out of beyond earth.
That may be what you want the plain English word "supremacy" to imply, but you haven't done anything else to make anyone understand that meaning. Nor is "supremacy" part of the vocabulary of the source material. Meanwhile, my own personal connotation of "supremacy" comes from the WW III board game by that name. If 12 mushroom clouds fall on the map, everyone loses. Has nothing to do with far flung technological advancement, has everything to do with military might. Arguably, also implies economic might, as resource prospecting and market control is a big part of that game.
"Cybernetic" is far better at getting the idea of a technical far future across. It additionally implies the melding of man and machine. I don't know what kind of technological future you're going for. There are many possible far futures.
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Purity represents a future society based on purity and the pursuit of excellence
That by itself doesn't mean anything. Nazis believed in purity just fine. The question is what kind of additional world building would you do to inform people what kind of "purity" you're talking about? For instance, the society could become entirely ascetic.
These new SE choices seem to be screaming for new factions that implement the particular ideological models. Like which one is the Autarky faction? It's a weird word, and I don't think I buy that it has anything to do with the Data Angels. They're closest to an Anarchy faction, although I realize there are various flavors of anarchy.
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Harmony represents a conformist society where harmony and peace is the goal.
Rather than a 1984 thought control society.
This one I didn't think needed additional explanation. I got an image in my head of hippies singing kumbaya and taking classes in underwater basket weaving.
Post by: vonbach on December 26, 2020, 08:58:29 PM
Post by: bvanevery on December 26, 2020, 09:32:42 PM
There's a reason I finally landed on Theocratic. It's because ultimately, no matter what I want anything to mean, the game has dialog talking about God. End of story.
I chose not to rewrite the scripted dialog, primarily for legal reasons, secondarily in order to restrain project scope. I worked on my mod for 2.5 years as it was. You haven't said what your project scope is, to go with these SE changes. If they were to support entirely new factions with different ideological pitches, that would make some sense.
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2020, 05:36:24 PM
Instead perhaps:
1) Man/Machine - similar to Cybernetic but more intertwined at the nanotech level not just devices
2) Man/Chiron - bioengineered hybrids made of human and Chiron DNA
3) Man/??? - Ubermencsh in the Nietzche sense, human genome edited to remove our flaws
Not sure the best names for these. A fourth could be AI takeover but if that happens humanity is done for, and there's not a lot of lore for that.
Post by: vonbach on December 28, 2020, 07:38:37 PM
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I preferred Future SEs that were more about what the human species might evolve into rather than how we might live. As in a lot of ways Cybernetic/Eudaimonic/Thought Control mirror Police State/Democracy/Fundamentalist very heavily...just more extreme
Instead perhaps:
1) Man/Machine - similar to Cybernetic but more intertwined at the nanotech level not just devices
2) Man/Chiron - bioengineered hybrids made of human and Chiron DNA
3) Man/??? - Ubermencsh in the Nietzche sense, human genome edited to remove our flaws
Not sure the best names for these. A fourth could be AI takeover but if that happens humanity is done for, and there's not a lot of lore for that.
I flat out lifted the names for the future societies from Beyond Earth. In that game they are called affinities.
Supremacy is the embrace of cybernetics and machines to overcome the environment and eventually achieve a digital ascension.
Purity wants to preserve and improve on mankind and make the planet a new earth.
Harmony is adapting to the planet. I also like the idea of a softer take on a authoritarian state where people are conformist.
Much like the society in Demolition man.
I was trying to get away from specific government and economic types and use more generic terms.
Autarky for excample is a term for the idea of a self sufficient economy while regulated is just that a regulated economy.
Right now I'm working on what values to give everything. I was going to give everything three bonuses.
Except for the future societies will get six each. No penalties and I set every faction to having an interest in growth.
The goal is to make things easier for the AI.
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2020, 08:45:26 PM
Post by: vonbach on December 28, 2020, 09:12:53 PM
Yea really all of these 3 paths are the same - machine, human, planet-like. I think to some extent the bonuses/penalties they gave in the stock game were nonsensical and made it harder to conceptualize. I'd have to rethink what each should give
The one that is changed the most is Harmony in the thought control spot.
This is what I'm working on at the moment.
Some have more or less than their allotted allowance at my discretion.
Mostly because I think both Probe and Planet have less value and others more.
Free Market and Autarky I'm not sure about. I might do something with Progressive as well.
I'm tempted to add +Growth in Authotarian somewhere.
Authotarian, Chaos, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, +PROBE
Progressive, InfNet, ++EFFIC, +GROWTH
Traditionalist, Psych, ++GROWTH, +MORALE
Simple, None, None
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY,
Regulated, PlaNets, +ECONOMY, +GROWTH, +EFFIC
Autarky, DocFlex, +PLANET, +EFFIC, +ECONOMY
Survival, None,
Might, DocLoy, +MORALE, ++SUPPORT,
Knowledge, Integ, +EFFIC, +RESEARCH,
Prosperity, IndAuto, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC
None, None,
Supremacy, Algor, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, ++PROBE,
Purity, EnvEcon, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, +INDUSTRY
Harmony, PlaEcon, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2020, 09:40:17 PM
PROBE, yea...it's not so relevant. It needed to like reduce MC costs offensively, or alter the probe team options available. Something like that would be a lot of work to mod I'm sure. +3 PROBE is a nice to have though for the MC immunity.
I'd say those SEs make more sense. I'll do something kind of similar... penalties take some more thought. Probably Cybernetic gets -GROWTH (virtual society meets less for procreation), Eudaimonic keeps -MORALE (more from perspective of evolving past violent tendencies), Thought Control gets -RESEARCH (due to collective groupthink).
Post by: vonbach on December 28, 2020, 10:06:51 PM
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PLANET is kind of like INDUSTRY. If you get enough of it, it becomes very powerful. Since it's a multiplier with morale/lifecycle.
Interesting. I'll keep that in mind.
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PROBE, yea...it's not so relevant. It needed to like reduce MC costs offensively, or alter the probe team options available. Something like that would be a lot of work to mod I'm sure. +3 PROBE is a nice to have though for the MC immunity.
Yeah probe just never impressed me. Its tempting to add +2 Probe to might and get it over with.
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I'd say those SEs make more sense. I'll do something kind of similar... penalties take some more thought. Probably Cybernetic gets -GROWTH (virtual society meets less for procreation), Eudaimonic keeps -MORALE (more from perspective of evolving past violent tendencies), Thought Control gets -RESEARCH (due to collective groupthink).
I'm holding off on penalties for my mod to help out the AI. Growth penalties make a lot of sense lore wise but the problem is the AI hates Growth penalties. Thought Control/Harmony a research penalty is exactly what I'd pick. For eudaemonic/purity I'd probably give them morale or planet.
Honestly the Future societies are my lowest priority. The game is usually over by then. I'm trying to buff the AI by adding bonuses so their cities grow beyond 3 or 4 and actually make them a challenge so I don't steamroll them. Also I don't want to simply jack up the difficulty where the AI cheats.
Post by: bvanevery on December 29, 2020, 02:18:57 AM
YI think to some extent the bonuses/penalties they gave in the stock game were nonsensical and made it harder to conceptualize.
Yep. My Future Societies evolved over time. The 1st thing that happened is I stopped making them late game "wonderful bonuses". Like at the very end of the tech tree, where you don't really need them anyways. They became more late midgame things, and more balanced / not overpowered compared to other SE choices. It was expected that you'd play a lot of the game with 4 societal choices, not just 3.
I went through a long evolution of making my Explore Discover Build Conquer categories more distinct. Explore especially became much more focused on Gaian style mindworm techs as the game progressed. Harder to just obtain that stuff unless you were explicitly pursuing it. One day I realized, that Eudaimonic had evolved to become my "Planet friendly endgame" category. Not Cybernetic.
Then I realized there was nothing about sticking machine implants into your brain and body, that should make it easier to talk to Planet in any way at all. The way of the machine, is not the way of Planet. It's inorganic. Aki Zeta-5 is not a mindworm whisperer.
I made Cybernetic into my anti-Planet future society category. A Morganic cyberpunk future where everyone's making lotsa cash and knocking all the fungal towers out of the way, to make more Blade Runner urban pyramids and stuff.
I also made Miriam anti-Cybernetic instead of anti-Knowledge. Since grousing about cyborgs is actually in the videos.
Post by: vonbach on December 29, 2020, 03:28:12 AM
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Like at the very end of the tech tree, where you don't really need them anywaysThats why I moved them up because I actually wanted to play with them. Same with grav tanks.
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I also made Miriam anti-Cybernetic instead of anti-Knowledge. Since grousing about cyborgs is actually in the videos.
Cybernetics of that sort are forbidden in the Bible actually. But then so are women preachers.
Post by: Nexii on December 29, 2020, 08:59:15 PM
If anything I kind of feel Thought Control might get the +PLANET modifier. It's a sort of PSI/neurotransmitter control. And TC society is more like a singular collective much like Planet.
Eudaimonic strikes me as more of an individualistic utopia.
TC of course could get PROBE too, but it's kind of useless.
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PLANET, --RESEARCH
Post by: vonbach on December 29, 2020, 11:29:23 PM
Technology is used to communicate with Planet in the lore. But I do agree it's a stretch to say Cybernetic would get +PLANET. One doesn't have to become half-machine to use a machine.
If anything I kind of feel Thought Control might get the +PLANET modifier. It's a sort of PSI/neurotransmitter control. And TC society is more like a singular collective much like Planet.
Eudaimonic strikes me as more of an individualistic utopia.
TC of course could get PROBE too, but it's kind of useless.
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PLANET, --RESEARCH
Thats actually not bad. I've never been that fond of cybernetic getting planet or having probe penalties. If anything they should be spectacular at probe attacks. Thought control still seems a little weak but always was.
Post by: Nexii on December 30, 2020, 12:51:52 AM
Cyber is described very differently in the SE description compared to the scriptx dialogues for interfaction diplomacy. By the SE description it sounds more like an AI takeover leaving humanity sidelined. But the scriptx dialogues describe Cybernetic more as man/machine hybridization to an extreme level. I favor the latter as it seems more realistic and jiving better with much of the tech lore such as Mind-Machine Interface. So going that way yea I can also agree with -PLANET for Cybernetic, it is trending hard against the biological. And yea +PROBE also makes sense.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2020, 03:28:03 AM
Eudaimonic strikes me as more of an individualistic utopia.
The scripted dialogue is sorta written like that. But if you squint a little, when Cha Dawn is uttering it instead of Domai, it almost works. Actually nobody talks about the socialist worker utopia stuff unless they're castigating your Eudaimonic society. It could almost be about Planet.
It's a way better fit, than listening to Cha Dawn prattle about God. When I had him as Fundamentalist / Extremist, that proved intolerable. I had to put Miriam back into her proper God role.
Domai as a straight up hardcore Socialist, is better than when he was babbling about Eudaimonic. He's not Eudaimonic, he's Socialist. Belligerently so. A real jerk in my mod now, because frankly a lot of factions don't have any use for early Socialism. It's a deliberately not all that compelling category. It does tend to fit with Police State though, since you're not making a bunch of money from that anyways.
Post by: vonbach on December 30, 2020, 01:18:32 PM
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Domai as a straight up hardcore Socialist, is better than when he was babbling about Eudaimonic. He's not Eudaimonic, he's Socialist. Belligerently so. A real jerk in my mod now, because frankly a lot of factions don't have any use for early Socialism. It's a deliberately not all that compelling category. It does tend to fit with Police State though, since you're not making a bunch of money from that anyways.
Domai actually cares about workers thats why the last thing he would ever want is Communism. I always liked Eudaimonic as a focus for him in particular. He wants to build a world where everyone if free to work toward their highest potential. Not a state where workers are oppressed.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2020, 06:20:49 PM
It's worth remembering that the goon squaddery the USSR actually got, was delivered by things like, an ice pick to the back of Trotsky's head. There are all those Mensheviks that the Bolsheviks liquidated.
Post by: vonbach on December 30, 2020, 08:25:44 PM
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Socialism has many strains, and historical state goon squad Communism ala the USSR / Stalinism isn't the only kind of Socialism out there. Domai wants "good Socialism" just fine.Theres no such thing as "good" communism. It's straight up evil. Wanting to help workers does not make you a Communist.
Communism isn't a government system its a propaganda tactic. Communists promise a lot of things but deliver only oppression.
Workers to them means party workers actual working people are cattle to them.
In any case we can agree to disagree.
I bought a rhoomba some time ago. My cat does not like my new mechanical turtle.
I went on a keto diet had a lot of success with it.
Post by: bvanevery on December 30, 2020, 11:06:08 PM
QuoteDomai wants "good Socialism" just fine.Theres no such thing as "good" communism.
You of course will have your opinion. I notice you changed the word, from Socialism to Communism.
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It's straight up evil.
I honestly think for you, it's a brand identity. Whatever you want to call evil. It doesn't have a lot to do with the breadth of political movements that have fallen under the label "Socialism". You can read about most of them on Wikipedia.
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I bought a rhoomba some time ago. My cat does not like my new mechanical turtle.
I went on a keto diet had a lot of success with it.
Good to know!
Post by: Nexii on December 31, 2020, 04:19:25 PM
They needed factions that embodied:
Planned, Wealth, Thought Control
We get 2 Democratic, 2 Green, 2 Power instead
TC - Cult
Pirates - Wealth
Domai? - Planned
But then someone else would have to be Eudaimonia, maybe PKs
Post by: bvanevery on December 31, 2020, 05:18:12 PM
Yang is the closest thing to communism, that is Police State+Planned.
Definitely, without a doubt, and quite deliberately so. He's a spaceification of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, with "cyberpunk woo" added. "Hitler in space" or "Hitler as a cyborg" is a sci-fi genre, exemplified by movies such as "Iron Sky". Well imagine Mao in space, this is what you get.
I tweaked Yang's faction to be squarely focused on POLICE, and less on Planned / Socialist. This to echo our contemporary experience of China. They were never terribly Communist in the worker collective sense. They're pretty capitalist and money grubbing, and better thought of nowadays as a Single Party State that has a historical Communist faceplate on it. I wanted my Yang to potentially choose Police State Free Market, more like modern China.
In practice, my version of Socialist often dovetails with Police State. PS doesn't give you any ECONOMY bonus, whereas my Democratic does. So you see a lot of Democratic Capitalist for the +2 ECONOMY that gives you in total. Whereas factions that insist on Police State (Hive), Theocratic (Believers), or Socialist (Drones, Aliens), tend to pair those things up, because they can't get to +2 ECONOMY.
This can change once Wealth is introduced. Or Cybernetic, which in my mod is sort of ultra-Morganite Blade Runner thing.
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But then someone else would have to be Eudaimonia, maybe PKs
Lal is the champion of Democratic, end of story. Any other decision is gross violation of the original game material.
I have Eudaimonia as my Planet friendly thing, Cult on Eudaimonia, and Data Angels on Thought Control. With a lot of tech tree reshuffling, I could reverse the Planet orientation and their positions. I will think long and hard about whether that's worth it.
One reason to consider it, is that Roze doesn't actually need Thought Control. She's already super tough on PROBE and the AI often chooses Police State, which in my mod brings her to +3 PROBE at the beginning of the game. Making her a bubbly Eudaimonic, would be moving her back to her original characterization, instead of my darker interpretation her. I figure all that cyber hacking mind controlling went to her head. Absolute power corrupting absolutely and all of that.
The Cult being into Thought Control has some narrative appeal, but it has no practical value. TBH late game PROBE bonuses are useless. I think in my mod, it has retained a vestigial narrative flavor. I wanted someone to do every slot in the SE table. But I don't think Roze has ever worked as a Thought Control Conqueror.
Post by: vonbach on December 31, 2020, 10:53:38 PM
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Domai? - PlannedEudaimonia fits Domai. He wants a better world for his people.
But then someone else would have to be Eudaimonia, maybe PKs
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This to echo our contemporary experience of China. They were never terribly Communist in the worker collective sense.
China is more nationalist than anything else.
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Lal is the champion of Democratic, end of story. Any other decision is gross violation of the original game material.I've made him Police State focused in the past. Out of Democracies flows the cruelest of tyrants
.
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One reason to consider it, is that Roze doesn't actually need Thought Control.Neither the Data Angels or Thought control ever had much going for them. Both are pretty useless.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2021, 12:58:53 AM
Neither the Data Angels or Thought control ever had much going for them. Both are pretty useless.
At least I made my Data Angels get their free techs without having to infiltrate anybody. It was totally unrealistic to expect the poor dumb AI to do that with everyone. They tend to be ahead early due to all the tech leakage coming their way, and behind late because they only know how to steal tech, not make it.
Just realized any retooling of Eudaimonia on my part is probably not going to work. In my mod, Explore means growth, happiness, and mindworm warfare. I'm not happy with the conflation of all those categories, but it's what the original game actually does, and how the AI actually works. Well at least for growth and mindworms. Happiness, I decided to make it more of an Explore thing than a Build thing, because of the AI treatment of "population and growth". The idea being that in the future, you can be happy and poor. You don't need to be building and money grubbing.
I did somewhat recant as time went on, making happiness bleed into Build with half as much research weight put on it. So Builders will probably figure out some happiness stuff at some point. Because, more happy workers does actually make you more minerals and money.
Anyways, my Eudaimonia evolved to be the logical conclusion of GROWTH + PLANET. If I switched things around and made that Thought Control instead, well then I'm adding PROBE to that. Which doesn't make a lot of sense. Singing kumbaya with Planet ala Eudaimonia makes a lot more sense.
A case could be made for the uselessness of Thought Control and replacing it with something else. I don't think it's great stuff in the original game material, because no faction championed it. Me sticking Roze in there, was an invention, and it's not effective.
I'm happy with my Cybernetic and my Eudaimonic. But I'm not sure what Future Society I'd contrast those with, if I ditched Thought Control.
Arguably, Cybernetic already is Thought Control. Maybe not in the original game, but in a dystopian Blade Runner or Chairman Yang version of the future, it is. Miriam's "We Must Dissent".
Post by: vonbach on January 01, 2021, 01:04:09 AM
Neither the Data Angels or Thought control ever had much going for them. Both are pretty useless.
At least I made my Data Angels get their free techs without having to infiltrate anybody. It was totally unrealistic to expect the poor dumb AI to do that with everyone. They tend to be ahead early due to all the tech leakage coming their way, and behind late because they only know how to steal tech, not make it.
I kept that in actually. Still didn't do them much good last game. Got pulverized by the Guardians of morality a classic believer type faction.
The most important things I've seen for the AI is aggression and an interest in growth. So i modified every faction to have an interest in growth.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2021, 01:17:09 AM
I currently have every faction with a unique combo of ai_whatever imperatives. This happens to work out to 14, not including the all and nothing cases, which I don't implement. I spent a lot of time differentiating the choices according to what is hopefully correct about faction character. So for instance, Yang finally became a Discover Conquer faction. Because if you pay attention to his lore, he clearly researches things up the wazoo.
Aggression is not key to AI performance. Whether to pick Aggressive, Erratic, or Passive is situational for the faction. The Pirates, for instance, have a giant moat around them called the ocean. They do best with Passive, building up this huge threat over time. They used to be quite terrifying halfway through my modding work, but something shifted and I don't find them so terrifying anymore. Maybe I'm just better at beating my own mod now?
I make factions Aggressive when they'd gain an advantage by attacking. So of course, the Spartans and the Usurpers, because they have MORALE bonuses. I waffled about the Believers but eventually decided their +25% fanatic bonus means they should go on the offensive. I had a more "soft Morganite" version of them for awhile, but went back more towards original material.
Post by: vonbach on January 01, 2021, 02:08:31 AM
Its also why I have Growth bonuses spread out in the SE tree.
Aggressive factions always seem to do better to me. Especially ones with support.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2021, 06:19:32 AM
I redesigned the whole tree because it needed it.
I'm starting to question whether my Theocratic is too boring, just giving +1 GROWTH and nothing else. But if I make it too good, the AIs will go nuts for it.
Post by: Nexii on January 01, 2021, 11:26:52 AM
I think I'll keep the more PSI/Planet inspired Thought Control. Using PSI technologies learned from Planet to control one's population seems more in-lore than subtle neurotransmitters. Eudaimonic is more of an enlightened post-scarcity humanity that doesn't use machines or PSI.
In the end the bonuses/penalties don't shift too much, but I feel this is more accurate to such societies:
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, +++PROBE, --PLANET
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PLANET, --RESEARCH
Cybernetic may be the least powerful of the 3 but it does come earlier. Arguably has a more mild penalty too.
Post by: bvanevery on January 01, 2021, 04:43:14 PM
If one is willing to change scriptx.txt, one could solve this problem. It wouldn't be a great harm to the original material of the game, because no faction actually uttered TC diplomatic dialogue. Nobody except a modder has heard someone like Roze go on and on about being the one true leader of the people.
Eudaimonic pushing dialogue, in contrast can be about Planet. It does resonate with all of the video materials about talking to "Planet, who is a German lady".
Post by: Nexii on January 01, 2021, 08:59:13 PM
With the population relying on one voice, I figured Planet/PSI is a reasonable benefit. You could be more resilient to PSI with another powerful voice in your head to keep you sane. Though the economic side of Planet might be a stretch, I guess we can say some kind of attunement with Planet is a side effect of the PSI control, as it shares a resonance. But it dulls creative thought (-RESEARCH).
I may also give Cybernetic SUPPORT over PROBE. Automated units seem like less maintenance than manually controlled. This leaves only Fundamentalist with +PROBE but I can see it as more of a cultural benefit than one related to computers. Regardless PROBE is weak as an SE unless you have probe cost reductions, so I need to really rethink the Data Angels
Post by: bvanevery on January 02, 2021, 07:28:58 AM
Let's put it another way. Do you really think Deidre's main bent is ruling Planet as the one true environmental dictator? Although you might not put it past her, do you really think she's gonna utter a whole lot of Yang-esque dialogue about the One vs. the masses? It just doesn't fit.
This problem could be alleviated by a PLANET oriented faction that does want to dominate everyone. Hmm, is Cha Dawn that wound up? Maybe. But the actual scriptx.txt dialogue doesn't talk about Planet at all. I don't think it makes sense for Cha Dawn to be going on and on about being a ruler, just in isolation by itself. His schtick should be about how everyone has to obey Planet.
SUPPORT has no real value in the mid to late game. Seems I have +1 SUPPORT in my own TC. Pretty pointless. I don't remember ever taking TC in any game of mine for many many months now. I either take Cybernetic for money and research, or Eudaimonic for growth and Planet. TC I'd only do if I built the Cloning Vats, and I still might not. I haven't made it to the C.V. in a long time. Tend to get bored and quit before then.
Post by: vonbach on January 03, 2021, 03:10:47 AM
I never was impressed with the idea of thought control. Either in lore or in gameplay. centuries in the future and thats
the best way they could find to manage a population?
Thats one of the reasons i thought about renaming it to Harmony like it's an extension of the Aesthetic Virtues.
Though I could probably come up with a better name. The idea of a future society where people actually believe
in working for the greater whole. Something like the Greater Good of the T'au in 40,000.
Post by: bvanevery on January 03, 2021, 05:53:17 AM
Do you see a big problem distinguishing between excellence and harmony? I don't. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. The endgame admonition is "Be Excellent to one another!"
Post by: vonbach on January 03, 2021, 01:02:38 PM
Quote
But that's just Eudaimonia. They did that. It's the highest excellence, the best thing in us.
No Eudaemonia is the pursuit of personal excellence. The society I am talking about is one where people put the
greater whole above personal excellence or personal needs.
Post by: bvanevery on January 04, 2021, 05:16:33 AM
Code: [Select]
##Eudaimonia
#TECH54
The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now
an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist
in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in
accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should
be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will
be that of the best thing in us.
^
^ -- Aristotle,
^ "Nichomachean Ethics", DatalinksTECHSHORTS.TXT
Code: [Select]
##Eudaimonia
#TECH54
^^"True and complete happiness"TECHLONGS.TXT
Code: [Select]
##Eudaimonia
#TECH54
{Eudaimonia} is a philosophical system that takes
its name from an ancient Greek word for fulfillment
and happiness. Based on economic equity made
possible by [Sentient Econometrics (E11)] and
rooted in opposition to the excesses of [The
Will to Power (E8)], {Eudaimonia} encourages
each citizen to achieve happiness through striving
to fulfill completely his or her potential;
freedom, creativity, and individuality flourish
in governments that adopt this philosophy.Now here are the possibilities I see:
- happy and harmonious
- happy and squabbling, discordant
- unhappy and harmonious
3. is Thought Control.
I say Eudaimonia is likely 1. You say it is likely 2. But if everyone's got their own happy, what's best in themselves, what are they supposed to be squabbling about? How can people have so many different versions of happiness, that they are seriously discordant? Surely, nominal diversity is not seriously discordant.
Post by: vonbach on January 04, 2021, 12:54:09 PM
Quote
I say Eudaimonia is likely 1. You say it is likely 2. But if everyone's got their own happy, what's best in themselves, what are they supposed to be squabbling about? How can people have so many different versions of happiness, that they are seriously discordant? Surely, nominal diversity is not seriously discordant.
Eudaimonia is the pursuit of personal excellence while not infringing on others.
I'm thinking of an alternative to a though control society that isn't just about oppression.
Basically the idea is a socialist "communist" state where people really do believe and work toward
to the greater societal whole. A just and equitable collective effort without overt oppression.
I need a better name, but haven't found any inspiration yet.
Post by: Vidsek on January 04, 2021, 03:49:58 PM
"Cooperative Eudaimonia" might nail it, but is rather cumbersome.
Post by: Nexii on January 04, 2021, 06:05:21 PM
Harmony path would have similar benefits as I see it. Boosts to Planet, Morale, and Police. Maybe Probe for MC though Probe is kind of busted/weak. Whether the TC is through subtle PSI or neurotransmitter signals or bioengineered chiron hybrids, or some combination, this is all kind of similar ways of ending up there. I'll probably write up a blurb at some point but it won't change the script dialogues.
Agree it wouldn't be as oppressive as Big Brother / 1984-esque society, as those being controlled by one powerful leader would not even be aware of it. It's more along the lines of how the sentient fungus is described to be controlling/managing the ecology of the entire Planet.
Harmonious is probably fine as an alternative descriptor.
Post by: bvanevery on January 04, 2021, 06:17:00 PM
A just and equitable collective effort without overt oppression.
I need a better name, but haven't found any inspiration yet.
It's called Socialism. :D You've just been poisoned by decades of Capitalist propaganda, and the realities of the Communist murdering goon squads leading various countries. I've tried to say before that Socialism, as a word by itself, shouldn't be something you're making vampire cross-fingers at. For instance, medicare is socialized medicine and it's not considered controversial in the USA by most people. They don't think about it as socialism because nobody's branded and demonized it with the "socialism" cold war aspersion label. Socialism didn't used to be quite such an ugly word in the American vocabulary, particularly in 1930s labor movements. It's a McCarthyist cold war artifact.
Socialism is not a particularly advanced or futuristic society. It's just something that people mostly refuse to do, in the biggest structural picture of our mostly capitalist societies. A big debate in socialist circles is whether social democracy is possible within existing systems, or revolutionary socialism is the only way to get rid of the capitalist burden. For me personally it is not much of an operative debate, because all the military revolutions have merely empowered a goon squad. The State gets filled with opportunistic people "more equal than others", to use the Animal Farm phrase.
Post by: bvanevery on January 04, 2021, 06:31:00 PM
The use of PSI is described as dark enough in the lore (maybe even too dark - from non-Gaian factions) for such uses.
Described by whom, when? You've got a video of the Dream Twister, which doesn't have any character talking about it. Most psi stuff is described by Deirdre's voice acting, whether in quotes or videos. Lal comments that mindworms do their job "ruthlessly and efficiently". Santiago talks about stronger minds shielding the rest with the Neural Amplifier. Morgan's faction has "Recon Rover Rick". Zhakarov talks about exterminating mindworms, flipping his lid in the Lab Three aftermath. Miriam and Yang never talk about it at all. Not even once. And the expansion characters count for little, as they're not very well done, nor do they get many lines. Svensgaard talks about the desirability of working in a Brood Pit, and using razor fish to herd food.
The problem, as I said before, is not what we can imagine and extrapolate as the possibilities of psi. The problem is what the game puts front and center as the realities and connotations of psi. Let's make a Star Wars metaphor. The movies spend a lot of time telling you that Darth Vader is a bad guy. Now if someone comes along and starts extrapolating the possibility of Darth Vader being a neutral to good guy... well the thematic weight of the movie is decidedly in the other direction. Whatever's theoretically possible, is jarring and aberrant compared to what's actually presented.
Psi is "Deirdre stuff". It's pretty difficult to untangle it from her storyline, absent new narrative content.
Using mindworms to control the society is Cha Dawn stuff. That's not really about psi, it's about grotesque execution.
Post by: vonbach on January 04, 2021, 08:46:28 PM
Quote
It's called Socialism.
Tell that to anyone that's lived under it. The only people that believe in it is people that have never had to or people with money in the first place. Anyone that's actually lived under hates it. Like some of my relatives.
Quote
For instance, medicare is socialized medicine and it's not considered controversial in the USA by most people.
Medicare is also a monstrous boondoggle that is ridiculously corrupt and is nearly useless unless you're on welfare.
Line the one quote I heard said to a man living in a trailer." Bluntly put you are supposed to be paying for Medicare not receiving it"
Quote
It's a McCarthyist cold war artifact.
McCarthy was also right.
Quote
"Cooperative"Cooperative sounds nice. Harmonious isn't bad either.
Post by: bvanevery on January 05, 2021, 03:17:06 AM
QuoteIt's called Socialism.
Tell that to anyone that's lived under it.
Sure, go talk to some Swedes or something. I don't know why you persist in this brand labeling that things like Social Democracy don't exist. There are actual Socialist parties in Europe that sometimes gain control in their governments. Then they implement what they care to, same as any party that gets into power. They can win elections because these societies are more Socialist leaning anyways. It's not this conservative McCarthyist thing to them.
Unless you are going to come up with some kind of "no resource struggle" version of humanity's future, where there's nothing to struggle, hoard, and be corrupt about, pretty much any kind of utopianist harmony you come up with, is gonna look a lot like Socialism. You can try the Anarchist approach to things, but you're not really going to get harmony that way. You might get a system where not so many people are exploited or die on the balance. I think it's a real stretch, but I make some allowance for the freeing possibilities of better resources in humanity's future.
I also note that that's not Planet. Planet starts out as a scarce resource, extremely dangerous environment.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 05, 2021, 03:45:49 AM
Post by: bvanevery on January 05, 2021, 04:10:48 AM
Post by: Nexii on January 05, 2021, 04:46:25 AM
Post by: vonbach on January 05, 2021, 02:29:36 PM
A game about ideology that triggers polarized ideological discussions. Whooda thought.
Pretty much. Thats one of the reasons I simply walk away some times.
Quote
I also note that that's not Planet. Planet starts out as a scarce resource, extremely dangerous environment.My latest project is I played with the fungus terraforming technology so it comes much, much earlier. Haven't tested it yet.
Post by: bvanevery on January 05, 2021, 06:38:41 PM
There's a difference between a discussion and an argument.
I don't believe there's anything wrong with arguments. There are people who do, and I don't agree with them. There are definitely arguments that become too heated, unproductive, and impolite.
Polarization implies argument, not discussion. I live in a highly polarized country. vonbach and I get along extremely well for having very opposite viewpoints in some areas.
Post by: vonbach on January 05, 2021, 11:25:16 PM
Quote
vonbach and I get along extremely well for having very opposite viewpoints in some areas.This is true.
Quote
I live in a highly polarized country.I am curious where actually.
It's actually amusing that avatar was picked because my shoulders, jawline and neck somewhat resemble that.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 06, 2021, 02:27:40 AM
In this matter, I'm going to insist on topic discipline. Please don't feed.I swear the next word I see about politics in here will draw a ban.
P.S. Written in anger.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 06, 2021, 01:45:34 PM
Gentlemen, I got my own authority issues, and dislike having to give orders as a consequence - but if I don't enforce them when I feel I must give them, all the invisible janitor work I put in to keep the place running isn't worth anything. I want a community where respect flows in all directions, but that does include towards me, thank you.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 16, 2021, 11:13:53 PM
Kinda sorta SUPER awkward/impossible to talk about SE settings w/o talking about socialism and what-have-you - of course. It was a saying socialism is evil kind of thing and that mutating into comparisons to current events and politics that was a problem, as current events almost instantaneously bore me out.
And von, you'll perhaps be interested to know that I got an actual communist who swings by every month or so to post aggravating garbage - and he's gonna deal with me thunderously failing if I see him post his usual here any time soon. I may loosen up later as events indicate is prudent.
-See also last night's topped rules thread post in Council Room.
So IF y'all can leave out the value statements and contemporary politics, PLEASE discuss Planed and how it's socialist and how socialism works. -And Police State and all that. None of us have anything to prove to each other; we wanna talk about a fun game and have a good time doing so. That there's some unity you can believe in, and I'm all for it.
-Carry on.
Post by: bvanevery on January 17, 2021, 05:09:14 AM
So IF y'all can leave out the value statements and contemporary politics, PLEASE discuss Planed and how it's socialist and how socialism works.Emphasis mine. This is somewhat impossible. I'll explain why. Even within the Left, there are many strains of Socialism espoused.
Recently, I discovered a new group on Reddit called r/Practical_Socialism (https://www.reddit.com/r/Practical_Socialism/). Its moderator is a refugee from various other leftist groups all trying to shout each other down about really wound up, picky stuff. You're not doctrinaire this, you're not doctrinaire that! Your theory is wrong, your history is wrong, your understanding is wrong, your reading comprehension is wrong, yadda yadda yadda. You are not politically correct enough, Comrade! So now you are banned for the slightest infraction because you're a "bootlicker" or whatever.
So this guy wanted to start a group, aimed at taking practical action of moving society to the left. Not all this tinpot forum dictatorship and personal fiefdom garbage that most of the mods are doing, because they're such incredibly immature jerks. So he roughly told it. Well I tried one of the other leftist groups and almost immediately got banned. So I saw his point pretty quickly! The leftist ecology on Reddit is really as bad as he says.
Anyone who actually takes the effort to pursue Wikipedia, will see that Socialism is a broad subject area. Articles that I've run into recently, are things like not all Socialists are Marxists. Isn't that a kicker? One of those a square is a rectangle, a rectangle is not a square kinds of things. I'm still wrapping my head around the Nordic model (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model), which many right wing detractors are quick to decry as not Socialist. But I suspect they are probably halfway wrong. Workers have more bargaining power enshrined into law in those countries, and that changes a number of things. As well as some other things, which one could argue are Socialist. Indeed, people do argue. All the friggin' time.
In any society, you do not find agreement over what polarized, charged up words mean. 'Socialist' is one of those words in the USA. It is value laden. Even among people who support 'Socialism', it is value laden. Nevermind people who use it as a synonym for all that is evil, wrong, and bad.
This is just what human beings do. They fight about what words mean. They are trying to control each other's behavior, through the symbolism of the word. Or flag. Or iconography. Or manner of dress. Or whatever. This is what human beings do. I have a B.A. in Sociocultural Anthropology, I studied this kind of stuff for awhile.
So when you see these terms in SMAC, you have to accept that the words are value laden and that this is deliberate. SMAC is not a work of detached removal and remote examination. It is a work of Art that pits philosophical systems against each other. That's by design, and it even offends occasionally by design. I tamped down the anti-Christian stuff in my mod for that reason, although dammit, the limited number of game mechanics are kinda pushing me back into the "Theocrats can't research" thing again.
Why did I change Free Market and Planned to Capitalist and Socialist? Because that's what they are. If you search xscript.txt, you can see where certain words are used. Capitalist and capital explicitly appear in the dialogue. It's a clear synonym for Free Market. Socialist does not appear, but communism does. As do nationalized industry, the equitable distribution of goods, and sharing with the lowliest members of society. This is all Socialist, regardless of the exact flavor. There's no ambiguity as to what the original game authors were talking about.
Code: [Select]
#SOCIAL1CAT1BAD2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"It appalls me that you seek to perpetuate the crimes of the unjust
capitalist system here on this young world, $TITLE0. I must appeal to
your basic sense of justice, $NAME1, and implore you to consider a more
equitable distribution of goods."
#SOCIAL1CAT1PACT2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, I have warned you against these evil capitalist economics
you have embraced. My warnings have gone unheeded, however, and it is now
my moral duty to renounce our $PACT2."
#SOCIAL1CAT2GOOD
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"Your society's willingness to share its prosperity equally among even
its lowliest members sets an example we should all follow, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
I commend you."
#SOCIAL1CAT1WAR2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, I have warned you against these evil capitalist economics
you have embraced. It is now my moral duty to eradicate your faction
before such an unjust system can take root on this young world!"
#SOCIAL1CAT2WAR1
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"I see my warnings have gone unheeded, $TITLE0 $NAME1. I shall not
allow your Planned economics to stifle the just and proper
flow of capital on this planet. I shall now use all means at my
disposal to rid this world of the evils of communism and
nationalized industry! Vendetta upon you, $TITLE0 $NAME1!"
#SOCIAL1CAT2PACT1
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"I see my warnings have gone unheeded, $TITLE0 $NAME1. I shall not
allow your Planned economics to stifle the just and proper
flow of capital on this planet. I must now renounce our $PACT2 lest
you plunge this world into the abyss of communism and nationalized
industry!"
Post by: Buster's Uncle on January 17, 2021, 04:01:36 PM
However, do make a good faith effort to keep discussion from going to the obvious places -and respect when He Who Pays His Own Money To Provide You This Place Free and Works To Run It if he says to dial your talk back- and we'll be fine.
I want this to be a community of Responsible Adults, cordial, if not all friends, though I hope for friends. There's a lot of hard work and hard thought behind that over many years I've been doing this since I accidentally got into forum management.
-Also, I misspelled "Planned".
Post by: t_ras on January 20, 2021, 09:26:45 PM
I would kindly ask every one in the modding forum to keep the political discussion in the context and level of modding ( like "for this ideology is expected such behavior" and then "such configuration" ) and not dragging it to pure, unrelated, political discussions. Feel free to move with those to recreation commons.
Let as all enjoy with very long modding posts, and not other unrelated ones.
Thanks you.
Post by: Nexii on February 10, 2021, 06:19:46 PM
Theme wise Free Market got -2 SUPPORT (mercenary armies) instead of police penalty. Knowledge got -2 POLICE (more open society) instead of support penalty.
Cybernetic I gave -2 ECONOMY which may seem strange. The idea is along the lines of the original description, that it may cause great poverty amongst the lower classes (and thus all of society).
Eudaimonic and Thought Control are more in line with original designs.
I'm tempted to give all Future Societies -3 penalties, as getting +6 in benefits is really powerful.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++MORALE, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, --ECONOMY
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on February 10, 2021, 06:54:49 PM
social engineering in SMACX AI Growth mod version 1.48 |
My release cycles are very slow now. I'm not really getting any feedback from anyone anymore. Not that I got massively much before, but there was a steady trickle. So, it's all about my own testing, and that's contingent upon me continuing to play my own mod. I still do, for now, but I see an endgame where I'm finally "burned out" and wanting to do something else with my time. If I were not held up by my programming language design stuff, if I were actually implementing a new game, I don't think I'd be playtesting my own work anymore.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 10, 2021, 07:23:05 PM
Post by: bvanevery on February 11, 2021, 01:32:53 AM
Post by: Buster's Uncle on February 11, 2021, 01:59:27 AM
Post by: Nexii on February 20, 2021, 04:26:19 PM
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++MORALE, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, ---POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---ECONOMY
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++PLANET, ---MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH
Overall I feel they're all quite balanced. AI doesn't like Wealth very much. Though morale is a big deal with how I mod - armor & unit abilities are basically free and weapons are the costly part. So there are more battles where the defender may win as you don't see unarmored units.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2021, 06:43:05 PM
A problem I see for your balance, is that you've just superpowered the Network Backbone. It eliminates the harsh Cybernetic penalty. You've also superpowered the Cybernetic Consciousness, as they can use Cybernetic with IMPUNITY. Unless you eliminated that ability of theirs.
Post by: Nexii on February 20, 2021, 07:24:12 PM
I suppose it was going with more of the poverty angle. That having most of society replaced by AI and automation would leave most workers without jobs. Which in turn would slow down the economy.
Yea, the SPs that remove penalties are incredibly strong. Especially Cloning Vats. Telepathic Matrix is another, essentially removing Democratic and Knowledge penalties. HSA for Wealth, etc. Not a lot can be done about that, except to say they should come quite late in the game. On the other hand though late SPs have few turns to pay off.
The factions on the other hand can be balanced around. I've tried to avoid IMPUNITY as it tends to reduce choices available. Perhaps if all factions were impune to their preference it'd be more balanced. It would make factions with future SE preferences tricky though. As they'd be weak early and very strong late.
Post by: bvanevery on February 20, 2021, 08:56:20 PM
Telepathic Matrix I made available in literally the last tech of the tree. Transcendii too. These are overpowered toys for a sandboxer to play with, IMO. In my mod they are all but out of the game. I call this approach "soft removal" of a game mechanic. Sure it's still in there, but it's so expensive and late as to be irrelevant to gameplay. A rational player trying to win, will long ago have done something else more profitable. i.e. conquer Planet with Impact Marines.
My Network Backbone is early enough and affordable enough to be relevant to gameplay. I have not actually observed it to meaningfully goose anyone's research. I think the benefit of every Network Node on Planet contributing to your own research, is not as dramatic as it sounds.
I'm against overuse of IMPUNITY, because it just makes factions boring. One's impune to this, another's impune to that. Currently I have my Hive as having IMPUNITY to my choices that have POLICE penalties. The idea is that Yang never takes a police penalty. So that means my Hive has IMPUNITY to my Knowledge and Eudaimonic. It might sound overpowered, but the arrangement was arrived at empirically, observing what the AI did or didn't do well with. Actually I'm not sure the AI knows how to exploit these mid to late game benefits, nor have I paid good attention to whether it's even doing so. And my jury is still out on whether I've created some kind of major human player exploit. I don't seem to have benefited super greatly from this new arrangement, so I'm not too worried about it yet.
Playtesting cycle feedback on mid to late game phenomena, takes a long time. The reality is you'll play many more earlier games, because they're shorter. You quit when you see a problem, fix it, then start another game. Takes a long time to play enough long games, to really have an idea whether a faction's long term prospects even matter.
Post by: Nexii on September 27, 2021, 09:10:57 AM
I feel this is a little closer thematically to my aims.
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++EFFIC, ++MORALE, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++GROWTH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++INDUSTRY,++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Police State: -GROWTH due to oppression/purges.
Democracies: ++MORALE and ++EFFIC is a weird combination. I feel that historically Democracies fought wars the best, just not too aggressively, hence ---POLICE.
Fundamentalist: ++GROWTH, they have the most focus on large families. Lessened penalty to -RESEARCH as ++PROBE really isn't that big a deal. May consider +++PROBE.
Free Market: --SUPPORT due to increased military costs, reliance on mercenary armies.
Planned: ++INDUSTRY might be a bit too good. Though its benefits are distinct from other Economics. May consider ---PLANET.
Green: ++GROWTH due to better crop yields/lower pollution. -INDUSTRY seems more fitting for sustainable development.
Power: --ECONOMY, as those extravagant weapons and training are costly.
Knowledge: Not much change.
Wealth: No change. May seem less punishing than FM but --MORALE is pretty harsh with my modding. Defense techs are more relevant, more close battles.
Cybernetic: Settled on --GROWTH, an online society is less social, and inline with CyCon's default penalty.
Eudaimonic: Not much change. ++RESEARCH seems more fitting than ++PLANET. Late-game PLANET stacking is kinda broken anyways.
Thought Control: Not much change. A little more relevant late-game than before as there is less overlap with Politics choices. May consider +++PROBE.
Avoiding EFFIC penalties, the AI just isn't smart enough to avoid going too far negative. Since it loves MORALE I expect to see a lot of Democracy/Planned/Power.
Post by: bvanevery on September 27, 2021, 10:32:33 PM
Police State Planned is awfully effective policing. 2x effective due to +3 POLICE. I allow my Chairman Yang to have that as his special ability, starting the game with +1 POLICE that he then mixes with +2 available in the SE table for Police State. Nobody else gets that kind of police boost, they have to build the Ascetic Virtues or wait for Thought Control.
Cybernetic peoples don't do research? Who knew? I figure one of the future societies is going to do the research. I just don't see why it's going to be the eudaimonicists rather than the cyberneticists. Doesn't having chips in your brain, give you better research? There is no "Mentat" fiction ala Dune in SMAC.
Post by: Nexii on September 29, 2021, 12:01:35 AM
Noted your SE set went with the latter: JUSTICE. I was leaning perhaps to the former (as the main effect is lost energy) but I have to give this more thought. If it's more about corruption then societal equality has to be represented by POLICE, TALENT, and/or GROWTH which I'm not really sure about.
-POLICE to me feels like it should sit in Democracy/Knowledge to represent freedom and/or pacifism
+POLICE obviously in Police State and Thought Control
+/- GROWTH perhaps, but it's more focuses and values to me. More equality could be GROWTH, we are seeing today less births due to inequality (at least in the middle class)
RESEARCH may be best fitting in Cybernetic. I can see it from a hivemind collaborative AI perspective as well... this sort of thing is starting to happen even in today's society. In this case INDUSTRY would probably have to flip back to Eudaimonic, which may be okay.
Post by: Nexii on September 29, 2021, 12:06:17 AM
Post by: bvanevery on September 29, 2021, 02:32:04 AM
Post by: Nexii on October 01, 2021, 05:09:48 AM
Only one I'm kinda leaning to being a bit weak is Green Economics. Although its kind of its own strategy with how I mod. Fungus production is better and FM/Planned can't use Fungus with the negative PLANET. Native life costs are slightly reduced and mind worms move at speed 2. Fungus productivity can easily make Green ridiculously overpowered or underpowered though, depending.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Democratic, EthCalc, ++MORALE, ++EFFIC, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --PLANET
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++TALENT, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, ++RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++PLANET, ++INDUSTRY, ++GROWTH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on October 10, 2021, 09:14:45 AM
Post by: Nexii on November 21, 2021, 03:39:48 PM
Also flipped PS and Power penalties. ECONOMY choices on the same tier give more overall choice.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++MORALE, ++EFFIC, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++TALENT, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, ++RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++PLANET, ++INDUSTRY, ++GROWTH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on November 21, 2021, 03:48:36 PM
Post by: Nexii on November 21, 2021, 08:34:00 PM
-2 GROWTH might be a bit steep, I'll see. Has to be -1 at a minimum.
Post by: Nexii on December 27, 2021, 05:32:48 AM
Police State and Democratic buffed a little, and Fundamentalist nerfed a little. GROWTH is really powerful (whether you mod to encourage vertical or horizontal expansion).
Economics becomes more of an energy (FM) / minerals (Planned) / nutrients (Green) choice.
Power slightly nerfed, it was a little too good in all situations.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++MORALE, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++SUPPORT, ++INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++GROWTH, -INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, --ECONOMY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, ++RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++PLANET, ++INDUSTRY, ++GROWTH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on December 27, 2021, 04:35:10 PM
A refresher about diplomatic dialogue:
Code: [Select]
#SOCIAL1CAT2BAD3
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, your Planned economics are wasteful. More to the
point, your ballooning population and inefficient, polluting industry
will soon cause permanent damage to Planet's fragile environment.
I am sure your concerns are humanitarian in nature, but in the long
run your people will benefit from a carefully regulated Green economy."
Code: [Select]
#SOCIAL1CAT2PACT3
"I see my warnings have gone unheeded, $TITLE0 $NAME1. Your
inefficient collective factories continue to belch industrial
waste, and you have made no efforts to contain your rampant
population growth. Your lack of concern for Planet's ecology
compels me to renounce our $PACT2!"
Code: [Select]
#SOCIAL1CAT3BAD2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"We are the last survivors of the human race, $TITLE0 $NAME1.
Surely you must recognize that well-managed population and industrial
growth must take precedence over the complaints-du-jour of whining
environmental idealists. I urge you to renounce your extremist
Green position."
Code: [Select]
#SOCIAL1CAT3WAR2
#xs 440
#caption $CAPTION7
"$TITLE0 $NAME1, your misguided Green extremism can no longer be
tolerated. Since you persist in blocking the necessary growth of
population and industry, I have no choice but to resort to military
force. Vendetta upon you, $TITLE0 $NAME1!"
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2021, 02:46:29 AM
I think SUPPORT might fit Green a bit better. Given that Clean reactor gives support, and native life gets free support in fungus.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Democratic, EthCalc, ++MORALE, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++GROWTH, ++PROBE, -RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, --SUPPORT
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC, --POLICE
Wealth, IndAuto, ++ECONOMY, --PROBE, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, ++RESEARCH, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++PLANET, ++INDUSTRY, ++GROWTH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Post by: bvanevery on December 28, 2021, 07:57:48 AM
In the original narrative, none of the factions know how to make a Clean Reactor at the beginning of the game. The Green social engineering choice comes relatively early in the game, when still, nobody has the slightest clue about how to make a Clean Reactor. So it doesn't make any sense, to say Green should have a support bonus, for something that comes later in the game that they have no clue about.
There's no reason to believe that Clean Reactors have to be invented by environmentalists. It could be discovered by pure scientists doing basic physics research. It could be discovered by industrial magnates who need to get their production higher.
Oddly enough, in my mod, everyone starts out knowing how Clean Reactors work. It's a basic feature of human knowledge, same as how to build a boat. So in my mod, there's nothing particularly Green about it. I figure, if your society is advanced enough to be putting nuclear reactor packs on the backs of Scouts, well you can jolly well have figured out how to control nuclear fission to a very, very picky degree of detail.
My main sin is glossing over fission vs. fusion. The way it actually gets used in the game is "bigger energy pack".
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2021, 04:29:50 PM
I can see EFFIC fitting Green I suppose, somehow it became an equity movement too although this doesn't seem directly related to environmentalism.
AI won't pick Green with +2 PLANET +2 EFFIC if it has GROWTH downside - and rightfully so.
Hitting +2 ECON (FM) or pop boom (Planned if GROWTH) just blows it out of the water, unless you make native life incredibly strong
Post by: bvanevery on December 28, 2021, 05:14:35 PM
I can see EFFIC fitting Green I suppose, somehow it became an equity movement too although this doesn't seem directly related to environmentalism.
EFFIC in the original game is capitalist neoliberal BS. All I see in the game's original notion of economic EFFIC, is exploited workers. That's why I changed it to JUSTICE, going back to something more like the original Civ II concept of "better court systems". Also deliberately implementing social justice. So, my Deirdre does get +1 JUSTICE because a Green focus does make people's lives better, doesn't externalize the disposal of toxic waste and so forth. Fewer people poisoned, or flooded out. But ultimately, Deirdre will feed people to the mindworms and prioritize Planet over people if necessary, so I do not consider Green in this game as just as Socialist. Socialist gets +2 JUSTICE, the most you can get from 1 choice. Recently my Eudaimonic also gets +2 JUSTICE, as it is pretty much the utopianist future society choice.
I think in real world politics, pitting Socialist and Green against each other is usually a false choice. Although, one does have the issue of the dependent poor countries, wanting to industrialize, like their industrial democratic capitalist masters have already done. At the expense of things like air quality and rain forests.
Dealing more seriously with the nuances of real world politics, including real world strains of religious fervor as opposed to the "Miriam warmonger!" stereotype, is probably something I'll try to do in a commercial 4X title. Pitting the ideologies against each other is the main thing I see as worthwhile about SMAC, and the ideologies could stand to have more scope and clarity. Rather than say, trying to mull the differences between "Police State" and "Fundamentalist". In the real world, there are none. This has bothered me for a long time, but eventually I accepted the need for play mechanical differences in SMAC. Particularly with respect to an AI that is already written and that I'm not going to change.
Quote
AI won't pick Green with +2 PLANET +2 EFFIC if it has GROWTH downside - and rightfully so.
Wrongfully so. The AI was written incorrectly for Deirdre's narrative. "GROWTH is good for winning the game" is not compatible with her narrative. AI was clearly implemented as a one size fits all game mechanical effectiveness thing. Well hey SMAC couldn't have been expected to get everything right. They did more to combine gameplay and narrative than anyone had done, or has done since. They didn't make enough money to justify a sequel, so we modders are left to punt 2 decades later.
In my mod I unfortunately had to implement a Green with no downsides, to get past this original game bug where any downside, causes Deirdre not to choose it. It's ridiculous for her to get to midgame, be exhorting everyone to go Green, and not be Green herself. In my most recent release, I compensated for the lack of downsides, by making Green take longer to get.
Post by: Nexii on December 28, 2021, 10:07:45 PM
Ideally PLANET would have been more tied to the productivity of Forests. They got halfway there with Fungus. Boosting up Fungus to be on par with other terrain definitely gives more of an 'anti-development' feel. That was something I tried out (more for Cult than Gaia) and it was interesting. But it also means that both FM and Planned have to have PLANET penalties (or you'll just go Planned as 0 PLANET allows for full fungus productivity).
Noted Gaia and other factions will pick Green with a less harsh penalty like POLICE. It's sort of fitting as many modern Green movements are somewhat anarchist
Post by: bvanevery on December 29, 2021, 07:38:12 AM
I think I prefer the game's original possibility of a Green Police State. Very Deirdre. I've always seen Chairman Yang as her lover. My head canon is Cha Dawn is their [progeny of unmarried parents] love child.
Post by: Nexii on January 08, 2022, 02:12:32 AM
- Balancing the amount of +/- given
- Replacing -EFFIC with -ECONOMY (the stock AI underestimates how crushing sub-0 EFFIC is)
Here's my points scoring scheme for balancing:
+2 ECON = 5
GROWTH & INDUSTRY = 2 per +/-
+3 PROBE = 2 (+2 probe is pretty useless, mind control immunity is solid though)
-2 PROBE/POLICE = -1
All others = 1 per +/-
So the first three tiers always give 2 points net benefit. Wealth is a little more extreme but with PS and Planned both giving negative ECONOMY, INDUSTRY becomes its primary benefit (with a more crushing -3 MORALE).
Didn't do much with the future SEs other than boost Thought Control to +3 PROBE.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Democratic, EthCalc, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, ---SUPPORT
Fundamentalist, Brain, +++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --PLANET, --POLICE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, +INDUSTRY, ---ECONOMY
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++EFFIC, -GROWTH
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, --PROBE
Wealth, IndAuto, +ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, ---MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++ECONOMY, ++INDUSTRY, ++GROWTH, --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, +++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---SUPPORT
Tried a game with Yang and got bogged down in a long war with University. Kind of stalemated and Gaia/Morgan got very far ahead in tech. Granted the factions are customized and Gaia/Morgan might just be flat out better. Morgan has crazy trade economy and Gaia has crazy fungus economy. If I'd warred better (using more mixed forces) might have had a shot by tech stealing Morgan while going for Gaia, but it wouldn't have been easy.
Thought I could abuse ICS with PS+Planned but it was rather slow. Felt like my economy picked up once I got non-lethal methods and my cities could get bigger. Basically I should have rolled over University and PKs sooner and got a massive sea probe army.
Post by: bvanevery on January 09, 2022, 09:57:18 PM
Post by: Nexii on January 11, 2022, 05:02:02 AM
It's kind of a higher level flaw, that offense massively outperforms defense. So the +1 move on Elite is an auto-win. The defensive unit abilities that were supposed to equalize offense and defense are just too expensive. Cities don't provide meaningful defense, etc.
Before I get to modding again, I need to step back and think about 'what flaws' are to be fixed. The main thing I didn't like about the default SE table was that there was too much interdependence between tiers. Negative EFFIC was not viable to run, so Police State for example could only be run with Green (excluding Yang here). Planned could only be run with Democracy. So the majority of SE combinations, while interesting, just weren't viable at all. Then you also had some choices which were just weak like Fundamentalism. Arguably Power too. Free Market is kind of borderline on Transcend, the loss of drone control is significant.
Post by: bvanevery on January 11, 2022, 05:38:31 AM
Overall I think I achieved that, and maybe still do. However along the way, I had to contend with some serious hardwired AI defects and work around those. The AI simply wouldn't make certain choices if it didn't like the penalties. So my mixing system, ended up becoming more of a "you gotta get up the tech tree" system in some cases. Most recently, for Green, which in my mod had to have no downsides to work around the bug.
Weapons and armor, offense vs. defense, I haven't had a problem with conventional armaments for a long time. I squashed those problems rather a long time ago. It did take many iterations to arrive at an appropriate squashing, but eventually I did get there.
The big flaw that I only just addressed in my latest greatest release, was the status of the mindworm as the One True Superweapon. Now, you just can't have them so easily. You have to go capture 'em, and if you don't start the game as a PLANET friendly faction, it's gonna take some time for you to get Green. Some factions generally won't get Green anytime soon, because of their research foci. So the AIs can't all just be a bunch of Deirdre wannabes so easily.
Can't manufacture mindworms at all until late game. Gotta go capture 'em. That's a major change. Also buffed Hypnotic Trance to +100%, not +50%.
Post by: Nexii on January 14, 2022, 03:23:34 AM
That being said yea. 3 tiers of default style SEs is more net benefits/penalties than even advanced Civ2 governments. And it's amplified by faction SEs. Future SEs come so late that it's whatever.
If not EFFIC/JUSTICE then what makes most sense for Green's secondary benefit? I can't imagine Green without PLANET.
Post by: bvanevery on January 14, 2022, 03:41:27 AM
Does your SE table give away a lot of PLANET elsewhere? Maybe the AI thinks it's got enough PLANET and wants something else.
Post by: Nexii on January 14, 2022, 03:59:50 AM
Edit: Actually I think this can be a reason but there's more going on. Sometimes it will take Green when EFFIC is high. I'd have to revisit Bearu's notes on SEs.
Post by: bvanevery on January 14, 2022, 04:16:48 AM
Post by: Nexii on January 14, 2022, 04:25:41 AM
1) Faction size (number of bases). Generally Gaia will not reject Green as much if at large faction size.
2) Availability of EFFIC (or whatever else you make Green give). Generally Gaia will not reject Green if there are bigger side benefits.
You may see it if Gaia goes Democratic + Knowledge in your mod. But that's kind of an unlikely combination since it doesn't hit +2 ECON.
Post by: bvanevery on January 14, 2022, 12:17:33 PM
Post by: Nexii on January 14, 2022, 01:50:07 PM
Post by: bvanevery on January 14, 2022, 02:02:15 PM
So, you can fiddle the bonuses and penalties, and you can make choices available earlier or later.
Post by: EmpathCrawler on January 14, 2022, 02:25:22 PM
PLANET (https://github.com/b-casey/OpenSMACX/blob/58e36e0bc86a9e050c1cab2d737f7108834ba7c9/src/faction.cpp#L1412)
EFFICIENCY (https://github.com/b-casey/OpenSMACX/blob/58e36e0bc86a9e050c1cab2d737f7108834ba7c9/src/faction.cpp#L1318)
GROWTH (https://github.com/b-casey/OpenSMACX/blob/58e36e0bc86a9e050c1cab2d737f7108834ba7c9/src/faction.cpp#L1349)
Post by: Nexii on February 25, 2022, 09:55:03 PM
Basically avoiding -EFFIC as a penalty, it cripples the AI. Also avoiding -SUPPORT until later in the game, although I'm not sure if it really fits Knowledge. -POLICE probably is more thematic
I'd rather get the SE table right before my next round of modding. I've often felt that crawlers, formers, pods are undercosted leading to ICS, and facilities are overcosted leading to strange tech beelines. Same goes with armor and unit abilities, largely useless compared to chassis. Vertical growth is more interesting to me, so I prefer that pop-booming is possible.
Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier, None,
Police State, DocLoy, ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Democratic, EthCalc, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, -----POLICE
Fundamentalist, Brain, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, --RESEARCH
Simple, None,
Free Market, IndEcon, ++INDUSTRY, ---PLANET, --PROBE
Planned, PlaNets, ++GROWTH, ++POLICE, --RESEARCH
Green, CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++RESEARCH,-INDUSTRY
Survival, None,
Power, MilAlg, ++MORALE, ++SUPPORT, -INDUSTRY
Knowledge, Cyber, ++RESEARCH, ++PROBE, --SUPPORT
Wealth, IndAuto, ++GROWTH, ++EFFIC, --MORALE
None, None,
Cybernetic, DigSent, ++EFFIC, ++SUPPORT, ++RESEARCH,---GROWTH
Eudaimonic, Eudaim, ++PLANET, ++GROWTH, ++INDUSTRY,++ECONOMY
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE, ++PROBE, ---ECONOMY
Post by: bvanevery on February 26, 2022, 08:00:36 PM
Democratic is the new Free Market, absent PLANET penalties? Is it easy to obtain Democratic? Seems like quite a giveaway.
Given your Politics options, I can't imagine that the stock AI is ever going to choose Police State compared to the other 2, unless it's forced. i.e. the Hive. Even then, I suspect the AI will choose Frontier. Aside from -2 GROWTH just being a really bad penalty, the AI obsesses about GROWTH bonuses. I haven't verified that it equally hates GROWTH penalties, because I don't have any -2 GROWTH in my own SE table. Just -1 GROWTH for Power, due to all the people getting killed in wars. The AI does swallow that, because it really likes +2 MORALE.
Free Market --PROBE is setting the baseline for probe actions in the stock binary awfully, awfully low.
Why make Planned a repeat of Police State? And I don't see --RESEARCH as making any thematic sense at all. For instance, the old USSR had no problem with research. Heck it put Sputnik into orbit first. The State putting priority and budget behind new research, is arguably what a Planned economy does well. It's risk-averse capitalist big businesspeople that don't want to spend the money, unless they can see a "concrete and profitable application" out of it.
Giving Green +2 RESEARCH is rather much a giveaway. +2 PLANET is already a really strong bonus. You can gain so many captured mindworms and Isles. And with those, lotsa money from supply pods.
Knowledge makes your research more secret, people can't steal it? Doesn't make sense. It's not called "Hoarding Knowledge".
When Wealth has no ECON bonus involved, it almost seems like you should call it something else. Happiness? Kinda like you're moving Eudaimonic to a Values choice.
Why would anyone choose Cybernetic over Eudaimonic? You're going to make so much more money, and get your facilities done faster, and have more workers working the squares, that you can't possibly match all those buffs with a mere +2 RESEARCH. Nevermind -2 GROWTH penalty. The AI would be a fool to ever choose Cybernetic, unless forced.
For Thought Control, there is no point in having big PROBE if you can't have some money to go with it, to buy stuff out.
You have implemented only 1 clearly good Future Society.
Post by: Nexii on February 27, 2022, 12:05:13 AM
Planned having negative research arises from lack of market competition. Most of the world's tech innovation is in the USA and other free market countries. China and other Planned economies tend to just copy/steal our tech. And the USA did win the space race in the end. I considered moving +RESEARCH to Free Market from Green in the next set I do.
Wealth is more in the meaning of well-being in that set. I'd rather have it at +2 ECON but a penalty about on par with -5 POLICE which might be something around -3 MORALE or -3 SUPPORT.
Cyber comes a lot earlier than Eud, and so does TC. And Cyber/TC penalties can be negated by SP. So Eud should be better, although, the gap might be a bit much here.
As said not entirely happy with this set. POLICE is kind of like GROWTH, PLANET and INDUSTRY in that the more you stack the better it gets. These sorts of non-linear benefits lead to almost forced combinations like PS/Planned. With strong bonuses and penalties it becomes really complex to create viable combinations across tiers. In the base SE set I'd argue there are very few combination choices that are viable.
Post by: bvanevery on February 27, 2022, 04:54:04 AM
Controlling up to 9 population no matter the empire size is very powerful.I dunno, I've quit many games futzing with way too many 4x police unit regarrisonings. It's a lot of mouseclicks. You have to produce all those units and push them around. It doesn't seem to achieve that much more than making more money and paying 20% or 30% PSYCH tax, with a Rec Commons and a Hologram Theater.
In my mod I have Yang with +1 POLICE, not the Spartans, and no other faction getting that bonus. He can go to +3 POLICE near the beginning of the game. It's a good strategy and play style for him personally, that others have to get the Ascetic Virtues to pull off. I'm not inclined to call it generally very powerful though. I felt it necessary to arrange it like this for him, just so he could keep up.
Quote
A player can also boom up with Democratic (Psych) and then flip to Police State.
Why would you bother to stop booming? You'd just spend more money on PSYCH. You'd take all that money and buy happiness facilities.
The reason you stop booming with Planned in the original game, is because -2 EFFIC is onerous.
Quote
Planned having negative research arises from lack of market competition. Most of the world's tech innovation is in the USA and other free market countries.
Er, Linux, Free Software Foundation, Open Source, Creative Commons <cough> <cough> <cough>
I won't confuse these for an actual Socialist agenda, but they sure aren't a Free Market ethos.
Quote
China and other Planned economies tend to just copy/steal our tech.
"Our" tech. That's a rather right wing view of where tech comes from. Generally speaking, I'm opposed to embedding right wing assumptions in games. Broadly: computer tech has come from a lot of hackers. Who have a hacker ethos, not a Free Market ethos. Closest in the game's terms to the Knowledge social engineering choice.
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And the USA did win the space race in the end.
Remind me, what was won? Prestige of getting to the moon first? I don't recall any tangible, geopolitically important victories in space.
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Cyber comes a lot earlier than Eud, and so does TC. And Cyber/TC penalties can be negated by SP. So Eud should be better, although, the gap might be a bit much here.
If you intend to stick yourself with the vanilla tech tree, well that's a pretty big constraint on what you can ever balance.
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With strong bonuses and penalties it becomes really complex to create viable combinations across tiers.
I did mostly weak bonuses and penalties, to create mostly a mix 'n' match system. Over time, I had to balance that system by delaying some SE choices that were too beneficial.