"Realistic" attributes

[Elok]

SEE I'M HERE STOP SENDING ME PMS BUNCLE OR I MAIL YOU A DEAD CAT

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

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

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

Thoughts?

[Buster's Uncle]

Dang.  I just sent you another PM right before I saw this...

I need to think about your post before I have anything intelligent to say.  -You did leave out that eco-factions should be terrible at pop-booming, and Gaians most decidedly aren't.

[Eadee]

I wouldn't try to get "realistic" attributes, that would be a LOT of analysing. I'm on your side though, I'd just set the goal to get "plausible" attributes, that would be already satisfying to me.


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

• DEIRDRE: Planet Bonus is a no-brainer but the Efficiency Bonus is some kinda weird. In short terms its way more efficient to exploit ressources and to throw away the garbage you don't need instead of investing much energy into recycling. So I'd go for an Efficiency malus for the Gaians.
• YANG: The collective should get a police bonus since they're used to obey. The Industry bonus (brutal serfdom) seems plausible to me. Maybe a research penalty might be fitting since free thought is discouraged.
• ZAKHAROV: Research bonus is the no-brainer here. I could imagine a morale malus because they prefer strongly controlled environments for their experiments and really don't feel comfy on chaotic battlegrounds.
• MORGAN: The economy bonus is granted. I'd give them a bonus drone per 4 Citizens in a City to resemble  the "expensive taste" rather than the support malus. Giving them a planet malus for exploiting ressources might also fit.
• SANTIAGO: The morale bonus seems to be right. A probe bonus seems fitting to resemble some kinda task force and strong indoctrination of standard troops. I'd even give them a economy bonus since personal wealth and luxuries are frowned upon so taxes can be pretty high. Also a research malus might fit in since a survivalist has to be able to light a fire without fancy gadgets and a lot of technologies lead to lazyness in body and spirit.
• MIRIAM: The believers should get a decent Morale bonus. Science malus seems legit if you want to emphasise the conflicts between faith and science. (But I'd really enjoy a faction that successfully promote a synthesis between faith and science instead.)
• LAL: I can see the lack in efficiency through buerrocracy in the UN. Also like you mentioned there should be a police penalty.

[Buster's Uncle]

The logic of that scans.

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

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

[Elok]

Not sure about Santiago and economy.  A population who can do without frills are not going to consume much, which isn't great for the economy, is it?

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

Spartan: Out of peanut butter?  I will get more when it is on mega-discount sale, so I can buy in bulk for my fallout shelter.  But only as a durable protein source!  I DO NOT NEED PEANUT BUTTER.  PEANUT BUTTER DOES NOT CONTROL ME.

[Buster's Uncle]

...Peanut butter is nutritious, cheap and keeps well - I lived on peanut butter sandwiches when I was an underpaid actor...

[Geo]

Not sure about Santiago and economy.  A population who can do without frills are not going to consume much, which isn't great for the economy, is it?

Well, the Spartan version of 'frills' is cool extremely sophisticated military hardware. And only a strong economy can sustain that.

[Dio]

The logic of that scans.

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

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

The best alternative to the PROBE Bonus lies in the MINDCONTROL Faction bonus. This bonus makes the bases and units of the faction immune to mindcontrol and subversion while not giving any morale bonuses to probe teams.

[Buster's Uncle]

If immunity to anyone infiltrating the faction or probing techs could be added, that would be perfect.

[benschwab]

Keep in mind that realism is complicated.  Israel has its share of fundamentalists and is generally speaking considered very good at espionage.  The Catholic Church, when a secular power, was also good at espionage.  China is a communist state (at-least one that calls itself communist) and is both where Yang comes from and has always had a large population.

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

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

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

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

[Geo]

If immunity to anyone infiltrating the faction or probing techs could be added, that would be perfect.

Hunter-Seeker Algorithm.

[Buster's Uncle]

= Bonuses to the parts I was talking about Believers not being good at, too.

[Geo]

In Alpha(x).txt, there's this option to disallow tech stealing from probe teams.

[Dio]

In Alpha(x).txt, there's this option to disallow tech stealing from probe teams.

Unfortunately, that option prevents all players from stealing technology. However, given the fact that additional features require more code, then it becomes obvious that it must suffice for the moment.

[vonbach]

DEIRDRE: Planet Bonus is a no-brainer but the Efficiency Bonus is some kinda weird. In short terms its way more efficient to exploit ressources and to throw away the garbage you don't need instead of investing much energy into recycling. So I'd go for an Efficiency malus for the Gaians.
YANG: The collective should get a police bonus since they're used to obey. The Industry bonus (brutal serfdom) seems plausible to me. Maybe a research penalty might be fitting since free thought is discouraged.
ZAKHAROV: Research bonus is the no-brainer here. I could imagine a morale malus because they prefer strongly controlled environments for their experiments and really don't feel comfy on chaotic battlegrounds.
MORGAN: The economy bonus is granted. I'd give them a bonus drone per 4 Citizens in a City to resemble  the "expensive taste" rather than the support malus. Giving them a planet malus for exploiting ressources might also fit.
SANTIAGO: The morale bonus seems to be right. A probe bonus seems fitting to resemble some kinda task force and strong indoctrination of standard troops. I'd even give them a economy bonus since personal wealth and luxuries are frowned upon so taxes can be pretty high. Also a research malus might fit in since a survivalist has to be able to light a fire without fancy gadgets and a lot of technologies lead to lazyness in body and spirit.
MIRIAM: The believers should get a decent Morale bonus. Science malus seems legit if you want to emphasise the conflicts between faith and science. (But I'd really enjoy a faction that successfully promote a synthesis between faith and science instead.)
LAL: I can see the lack in efficiency through buerrocracy in the UN. Also like you mentioned there should be a police penalty.

Deirdre should get a industry penalty. Its the real price you pay for a "green economy" industry suffers to lake the greens happy.
Yang: Minus to growth. Police states like that produce mostly corpses and people don't like bringing kids into a world like that either.
Zakharov: Agreed a minus to morale actually seems to fit quite well.
Morgan: Morgan actually seems about right. I'd probably give him an immunity to or at least reduce some of the penalties for free market.
But then I don't think  Free Market should have many penalties at all.
Santiago: I think a minus to planet would be appropriate here. If theres any population that would be at war with the planet from the start it would be them.
Miriam: Support works as does morale and growth. The best penalty I could think of would either be Minus Economy (not really interested in the collection of wealth) or minus Probe Christian congregations have the bad habits of thinking everyone else follows the same morals the do (or at least tries to) Science penalty is just silly. If anything I'd give them a science bonus. Most of the small preachers I know have the equivalent of a phd.
Lal: Minus efficiency. Plus talent is wishful thinking. I'd give them the plus support and make them the militant faction.