"Realistic" attributes

[benschwab]

Lal: Minus efficiency. Plus talent is wishful thinking. I'd give them the plus support and make them the militant faction.

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

One of the problems with realistic attributes is who gets to decide what is realistic?  Religious leaders tend to be well educated and sometimes they can be important scientists but most physical and biological science seams to be done by secular researchers.  Also in my estimations, organized religions tend to aggregate wealth into their organizations.

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

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

Years ago I started a project to make 9 factions for each of the 9 non future society social engineering choices.  I ended up making 5 and ended up only regularly playing 2 (the planned economy and wealth values). Also, I played with the original 7 more often.  Without evidence that one's faction choices create a well balanced game I am skeptical that the choices are better than the one's Fraxis made (even if they seam to one person to be more "realistic") as I suspect that Fraxis spent several man hours tweaking the factions and the social engineering choices to create a balanced game.  It seams more balanced than the majority of games that I have played.

[vonbach]

One of the problems with realistic attributes is who gets to decide what is realistic?  Religious leaders tend to be well educated and sometimes they can be important scientists but most physical and biological science seams to be done by secular researchers.  Also in my estimations, organized religions tend to aggregate wealth into their organizations.

No kidding this is why it's not a good idea to let screaming leftist atheists make games. Miriam isn't a faction she's a cartoon character a
and an offensive one at that. Sir Isaac Newton was religious as was Hildegard of Bingem the Nun.
Also were laking a congregation of believers not a church (yes theres a difference) hence the name.

If Free Market was such a good choice that nobody would ever chose Planned or Green except for role playing, handicapping, or specific situations, the game would be worse.

We are talking realism here. The truth is Socialism and green economies don't work. They work until you run out of other peoples money.

[benschwab]

No kidding this is why it's not a good idea to let screaming leftist atheists make games.

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

We are talking realism here.

Out of curiosity, what do you think Fraxis should have prioritized: making a balanced game or making a game that reflects what you consider to be realistic?

[Buster's Uncle]

I think von was just pointing out that Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

I've had arguments in the past with atheist Euros who just don't see it.  Check the attachment.

[benschwab]

... Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

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

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

The Believing faction is one possible Christian Theocracy.  The Hive faction is one possible Dictatorship.  The Gain faction is one possible Ecological focused society.  I do disagree with some of the assignments (from my amateur understanding of earthling society, police states (like China post revolution) such as the Hive tend to have lower growth rates then freer societies) but because I can imagine another possible Theocracy, or Dictatorship, or Eco-society doesn't make those chosen by Fraxis to be unrealistic.  Also because the Gains have a negative modifier to Police Rating does not reveal a belief amongst those who developed the game that ecologically mindful individuals dislike authority.

[Buster's Uncle]

It's a story, and she a character who plays a role -one of the bad-neighbor factions- sure.  Taken as representative of people of faith, as the story strongly hints?  Hatchet job.  As a bad guy in the story?  Well-done.  (Note the different Miriams seen in diplomatic contact b****h v. the thoughtful technology ethicist in the quotes and movies, though.)

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

[vonbach]

I think von was just pointing out that Miriam is a hatchet job on church people, and I totally agree.

I've had arguments in the past with atheist Euros who just don't see it.  Check the attachment.

Pretty much yes. Its an obnoxious hatchet job. She's the Saturday night live "church lady" as a faction.
Its like they rolled every anti-Christian stereotype into one for the faction.

[benschwab]

It's a story, and she a character who plays a role -one of the bad-neighbor factions- sure.  Taken as representative of people of faith, as the story strongly hints?  Hatchet job.  As a bad guy in the story?  Well-done.  (Note the different Miriams seen in diplomatic contact b****h v. the thoughtful technology ethicist in the quotes and movies, though.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting back to the original question.  When analyzing weather or not the factions are realistic, I think it is sufficient to consider a faction to be realistic if it is one of several plausible representations of that faction.  An ELF type Green faction would be realistic as are the Gains.  The social engineering choices need stricter scrutiny.  Putting a research penalty on a Fundamentalist faction is a statement that Theocracies must (or tend to) suppress secular research.  Given the differences between a Theocracy run by the Order of St. Benedict and the Theocracy run by the society of Jesus, I do not think such a claim is justified (and both are Catholic Orders much less any other Christian or non-christian religion).  But it's just a game and having an option to sacrifice research for military success is interesting.

[Buster's Uncle]

He's definitely got a point, von, that you put it indelicately.

[vonbach]

He's definitely got a point, von, that you put it indelicately.

Im not overtly bothered honestly. Indelicate or not I think I have a point.
Getting insulted for something like the last two or three decades by leftists in general gets a bit old you know.
The Believer faction in general is a massive slap in the face in general to Christians in general and this culture
of insult has been going on for literally decades. Don't give me any nonsense about censorship either the left just
loves censorship. Just take a look at hate laws and the SJW crowd. The last time a leftist atheist moment
got hold of a country 66 million people died.

[Buster's Uncle]

You know, that's just straight-up politics, and there's a place for that in Recreation Commons, but not here...

[vonbach]

You know, that's just straight-up politics, and there's a place for that in Recreation Commons, but not here...

True. And I'm not in the mood for a flame war either. We can agree to disagree.

Out of curiosity, what do you think Fraxis should have prioritized: making a balanced game or making a game that reflects what you consider to be realistic?

They should've gone for a balanced game. For the most part they did. But lets just say I would've been happy if Miriam would've had different
abilities. Certain factions cant use certain politics for a reason. For instance the Drones cant use green because a +2 industry faction capturing mind worms would be flat out obnoxious.

[Yitzi]

The logic of that scans.

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

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

Actually, it wouldn't be that difficult to add new bonus types (though only of the sort that count toward the ; making an option to have PROBE be entirely defensive (and offensive bonuses to probing only come through faction abilities) would also probably be fairly doable.  Having a twelfth social engineering setting to allow for two PROBE abilities without removing something else would be fairly problematic, though.

[Nexii]

The Believer bonus to probe never really made sense to me, nor the one to Fundamentalism.  Though from a mind control/subversion perspective it's a possibility.

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

Personally I think PROBE being both offensive and defensive in nature is fine.  You can also argue with terrible spies you would have a hard time protecting information.  I guess you can constrast it with MORALE which works both ways and PLANET which doesn't..

[Buster's Uncle]