SMACX AI Growth mod

[vonbach]

I don't think so.  It didn't have it in the original game, and being careful and specific about GROWTH is part of what SMACX AI Growth mod is about.

The original game was very anti free market. It was just as bad as its treatment of religion. Free market should be a growth alternative to planned or socialist whatever.

Also it's Socialist, not Planned.  I don't just mean that pedantically, I mean that Planned crashes your EFFICIENCY.  Socialist increases your JUSTICE.

The thing is neither of them increase population in real life actually they decrease it.

It's the same as the original game.

It was too strong there as well. Free market in the original game had ridiculous penalties. Wealth should be where those penalties are.
Free Market should be more balanced I was thinking some variation of +Growth +Economy with a police or support penalty.

I think the negative penalties for nearly all of the choices are too harsh. Except socialist which is very overpowered.

[bvanevery]

Free market should be a growth alternative to planned or socialist whatever.

Why?  Industrial democracies decrease population growth rate.  I've studied UN data on this.  The basic contrast is, agricultural societies have people birthing many many children.  They want more field hands.  In industrial societies, people have more career opportunities and it takes longer to amass the skills necessary for the higher paid jobs.  Especially, women choose to do something other than get barefoot and preggers.  This is why in my mod, Democratic and Capitalist don't get you any growth rate increase at all.

Also it's Socialist, not Planned.  I don't just mean that pedantically, I mean that Planned crashes your EFFICIENCY.  Socialist increases your JUSTICE.

The thing is neither of them increase population in real life actually they decrease it.

Don't conservatives complain about welfare state babies on racist grounds all the time?  I don't actually know if it's a substantial population effect.

The Socialist I've put in the game is an imagined Socialism, and for all I know you may be right, an increase in GROWTH may be unrealistic.  But I already know that claiming Capitalism increases GROWTH is totally unrealistic, I've seen that UN data, so...

So one ends up having to make a game mechanical decision. Some choice has to give you GROWTH.  I'm not going to make Capitalist your best favorite category that gives you all the kewl stuff and it's a one stop shop, never choose anything else again.  Any given choice has to give you advantages and disadvantages.  So in my mod "Socialist is the way you turn the GROWTH on". 

It's the same as the original game.

It was too strong there as well. Free market in the original game had ridiculous penalties.  Wealth should be where those penalties are.

I already spread out the -5 POLICE penalities to Democratic, Knowledge, and Cybernetic, which is IMO is where they should be.  I've tested that play mechanic for a long time now and IMO it works.

Wealth gets -2 MORALE.  That's a serious penalty.  It makes your combat kinda suck.  In particular, it makes it pretty easy for mindworms to chew you up.  Capitalist Wealth is -3 PLANET -2 MORALE, basically sitting ducks for mindworms.  You try to kill some mindworm with a Scout or whatever and it's like aaack!  I just died!  Or you sprouted a Scout garrison for that population 1 city out on the frontier and a mindworm just blows it to smithereens.

If you think Wealth needs even more penalty than -2 MORALE, I'd like to hear why, and how you'd do it.  But I'll probably keep the pairing of +1 ECONOMY +1 INDUSTRY because they realistically go with one another.

I mean really, what's this rubbish about Planned / Socialist / Communist governments producing better INDUSTRY?  They don't.  They never did.  Capitalism produces better industry, it's historically obvious.

Free Market should be more balanced I was thinking some variation of +Growth +Economy with a police or support penalty.

I'm perfectly happy with Capitalist getting the -3 PLANET penalty nowadays.  It's realistic.  I did a lot of playtesting of versions of Free Market with a nerfed PLANET penalty, only -1 or -2.  I eventually came back to the way the original game did it, as I realized that floods, getting your cities trashed by mindworm hordes, and inability to fight mindworms effectively, were important parts of the game that mitigated the strength of the choice.

Capitalist is not anti-police, there is no realism in that at all.  Democratic is anti-police, that's very realistic.  I decided that academics are also against the police.

Why would Capitalist have a SUPPORT penalty?  Capitalism is all about chucking out massive numbers of goods and services.  I have a SUPPORT penalty for Green, which is totally realistic.

I think the negative penalties for nearly all of the choices are too harsh.

The penalties are there to make it actually a choice, not just some free gewgaw giveaway without consequences.

Except socialist which is very overpowered.

I've found my Socialist to be completely useless in the earlier part of the game.  +2 GROWTH just isn't worth losing all possibility of getting to +2 ECONOMY.  Choosing Socialist and Eudaimonic at the same time is what's useful, as with a Children's Creche it triggers a pop boom.  Eudaimonic doesn't come until late midgame.

[vonbach]

Why?  Industrial democracies decrease population growth rate.  I've studied UN data on this.

Yes and our industrial democracies are riddled with social welfare programs.

The Socialist I've put in the game is an imagined Socialism, and for all I know you may be right, an increase in GROWTH may be unrealistic.  But I already know that claiming Capitalism increases GROWTH is totally unrealistic, I've seen that UN data, so...

Capitalism does increase growth, Giving people opportunities instead of social programs paid for with other peoples money helps economies and populations grow. Socialism works until you run out of other peoples money. It also decreases population growth. Theres UN data on that.

I mean really, what's this rubbish about Planned / Socialist / Communist governments producing better INDUSTRY?  They don't.  They never did.

They never produced much of anything except corpses and oppression really. Or in the modern European socialist economies oppression and lack of children because no one want to pay for someone else's kids.

Wealth gets -2 MORALE.  That's a serious penalty.  It makes your combat kinda suck.  In particular, it makes it pretty easy for mindworms to chew you up.  Capitalist Wealth is -3 PLANET -2 MORALE, basically sitting ducks for mindworms.  You try to kill some mindworm with a Scout or whatever and it's like aaack!  I just died!  Or you sprouted a Scout garrison for that population 1 city out on the frontier and a mindworm just blows it to smithereens.

Just build Trance and trained units and morale and planet minuses don't matter at all. Wealth is the go to choice for values its a no brainer.

[bvanevery]

Capitalism does increase growth,

Provide your data, from whatever academically credible source.  When you do, I'll provide the UN data I used.  It's on the UN website and wasn't difficult to find 15 years ago.  Bet it's still pretty much right there.

Giving people opportunities instead of social programs paid for with other peoples money helps economies and populations grow.

Do not conflate populations and economies.  GROWTH means that more people get born.  The longstanding trend of the UN data is that industrialization decreases population growth rate.  Sure wealth goes up, that's the point.  Less people, delaying births, working on careers to get paid more money, longer and longer times in education for those careers, and machines to do work, means more wealth per capita.

Just build Trance

Trance isn't a free lunch in my mod.  Have you noticed?  Every unit is more expensive if you put Trance on it.  Yeah you can "just build" Trance, but aside from the almighty Trance Scout (which I do use heavily), you will be paying something for your pursuit of WEALTH.  Having Trance Scouts everywhere isn't a free lunch either, because it's a weak unit that costs SUPPORT.  Tradeoffs tradeoffs tradeoffs.

and trained units

Building Command Centers is a cost.  If you only build them in a few "military unit spewing cities", you still have to walk those units to other places in your empire.  If you want to move everyone quickly by rails, well building rails takes awhile, that's a cost.

If you're talking about the High Morale ability, it's substantially more expensive in my mod.  It costs 2, meaning it's a 50% increase in a unit's cost.  I never use it.  I hardly ever used it in the original game when it only cost 1.  I increased the cost so that players won't have any easy way to override the rigid weapons = armor progression.  You wanna have a big offensive advantage?  You're going to have to research a lot of Conquer, there's no easy way to get a weapons advantage.

Except mindworms.     They do require a commitment to something other than Capitalist though.  Capitalist mindworms pretty much suck!  They can be used to pop pods, as they won't get attacked after they do it.  But they can't kill whatever comes out of a pod, they'll die if they try.

planet minuses don't matter at all.

You don't consider global flooding to be a problem??!  Haven't you played games where you were trying to get other things done, and every turn it's mindworms, mindworms, mindworms, pop, pop, pop?  Then you look at your SE and think, hmm, maybe my Free Market / Capitalist is out of control.  So you switch to something less polluting, which is a cost.

[vonbach]

Provide your data,

Look in a history book of the USA. Before the current cleptocracy. Or for that matter of Europe when they actually had healthy economies. The EU is the EUSSR. The UN also says that climate change is a problem. The UN is a joke.

Do not conflate populations and economies.  GROWTH means that more people get born.  The longstanding trend of the UN data is that industrialization decreases population growth rate.  Sure wealth goes up, that's the point.  Less people, delaying births, working on careers to get paid more money, longer and longer times in education for those careers, and machines to do work, means more wealth per capita.

It's not industrialization that is tanking out societies growth rate it's how poisonous our whole society is. Socialist governments do not provide growth.
Freedom and having opportunities provide it.  And you can't make everyone equal nor should we want to. Things are so depressing and miserable that no one wants to raise kids just so they can be tax cattle.

Except mindworms.     They do require a commitment to something other than Capitalist though.  Capitalist mindworms pretty much suck!  They can be used to pop pods, as they won't get attacked after they do it.  But they can't kill whatever comes out of a pod, they'll die if they try.

Mindworms are dirt cheap and yes you can use them with negative planet ratings. Especially with a monolith and a wonder or two. It's not hard to defend yourself against them either. I've never had any difficulties in doing so. Normally all I lose is some former and then I just build another.
The only problem with mindworms is same as infantry units they were slow but thanks to the early magtubes in your mod this means nothing.

You don't consider global flooding to be a problem??!

I've only had it happen in a handful of my games. I spam build forests and rivers maybe a condensor or echlon mirror.
Every once in awhile I build a thermal borehole for my HQ but thats it. It's almost never an issue.

[bvanevery]

Provide your data,

Look in a history book of the USA.

No no no, when a self-identifying Scientific Skeptic says provide your data, he means go find a specific book, article, whatever, that proves exactly what you are saying.  Give the actual page number of the material.  Then I will read it, assuming it's publicly available and doesn't cost me money.  Don't ask me to go on some wild goose chase to do your research.  I'm not trying to be obnoxious here, and I respect your intelligence, but telling me to go look at history books is not providing the data.  I've already researched lots of stuff, I already have my own ideas and opinions formed from the hard data I've looked at.  I wrote a game mod influenced by it, it even became part of the title.  I don't need a whole 'nother "general" contemplation of various materials, I did that already and concluded what I concluded.

I'll go actually dig up the UN data and present it, since I suspect it'll still be easy to find.  Once upon a time when working on my erstwhile Ocean Mars project, I used that data to calculate we have about 500 years until Earth fills up to the density of Singapore and Hong Kong today.

It's not industrialization that is tanking out societies growth rate it's how poisonous our whole society is.

This isn't data.  This is an idea about causality.  I will admit, I do not have as much information on the causalities of industrialized societies having a provable decreasing growth rate. 

Mindworms are dirt cheap

I did cheapen them in my mod.

and yes you can use them with negative planet ratings. Especially with a monolith

Guess I'll have to see if Pre-Boil to Boil is some kind of threshold of mindworm strength where they start being able to kill other mindworms, despite a -3 PLANET rating with a -30% Psi combat penalty.  Pre-Boil mindworms definitely couldn't do jack out in the hinterland.

and a wonder or two.

It'll take until midgame to get the Xenoempathy Dome or the Pholus Mutagen.  If it takes that long to become "usable" under Capitalist, then I'd say -3 PLANET is doing its job.

It's not hard to defend yourself against them either. I've never had any difficulties in doing so. Normally all I lose is some former and then I just build another.

You're a human player.  Consider whether the AI can defend itself.  I find when it has -3 PLANET and builds normal units, no it cannot!  But when it builds Trance units, yes it can.

The only problem with mindworms is same as infantry units they were slow but thanks to the early magtubes in your mod this means nothing.

It means a lot less.  It can still take time to build a mag tube.  Time which you may not have for other reasons.  Like in the current Thinker mod test game I've been writing up, I haven't had time to make enough Formers to build anywhere near the number of mag tubes I'm used to.  The Data Angels are hurling themselves too far and fast into the future.

And even with early mag tubes, I find in practice it takes me until midgame to completely connect my empire internally with mag tube lines everywhere.  Formers gotta work terrain to improve it as well, and cities need to manufacture lots of things other than Formers early on.

You don't consider global flooding to be a problem??!

I've only had it happen in a handful of my games. I spam build forests and rivers maybe a condensor or echlon mirror.
Every once in awhile I build a thermal borehole for my HQ but thats it. It's almost never an issue.

I avoid building Mines for a long time because if I build them when I'd actually want them, fungus pops everywhere and the Mines get destroyed.  Then the global flooding comes, destroying all my hand terraformed squares!  I don't even think about Mines until after I've built Hybrid Forests.  Well, maybe the Pholus Mutagen gives one more wiggle room, I'm never quite sure of the threshold.  But in a Thinker mod test game, I'm not guaranteed to get that.  In my current test game, somehow I managed it, but I'm pretty sure the leading faction started on it before I did.  Anyways as the Gaians, I had a justification for building Centauri Preserves, so I actually haven't done many Hybrid Forests this game yet.  Many bases made it to size 16 without them.  I'm Green and only have slight pollution in a few places so far.  Only just beginning to build Genejack Factories en masse.  If I was trying to do all of this under Capitalist with -3 PLANET it would probably be POP, POP, POP, FLOOD.

[bvanevery]

Web searching for "United Nations population growth" found me the UN population data instantly.  I figured they probably weren't going to get out of the business of talking about how much people give birth.  They've reorganized a lot of stuff since I last looked at it ~15 years or so ago.  I'm not super familiar with some of the terms they're using, like what "Total Fertility" exactly means, for instance.  But it probably means what I think it does, based on the shape of the graph, which I'm definitely familiar with in looking at industrial societies.

Details Total Fertility in the United States of America

Total Fertility in the United States of America

So here we have in the USA, people stop spewing babies.  There's a ripple, and one might wonder what the small upswing is about.  But clearly, people don't do it like they did when they were all farmers.

Actually I am now remembering, Total Fertility Rate (TFR) must be what I knew as the Growth Rate when I did my research before.  Because it's 2.1%.  That's this magic threshold that countries fall to when they industrialize.  My planetary population projections were based on all countries eventually dropping to this rate, like in the next 50 to 100 years IIRC.

[bvanevery]

I had some further thoughts on "difficult to crack bases".

The extreme difficulty of getting into these bases with Hovertank units, just because of one ECM defender, makes me revisit Tim Nevolin's idea of dropping the ECM buff to +25% defense.  He also did that with Trance units, although I have less of an opinion on that at this time.  I think the balance of power still favors Psi attacks, even if I haven't been able to utilize them presently.  Finally there's the question of AAA defense.  Maybe overpowered.

[vonbach]

So here we have in the USA, people stop spewing babies.  There's a ripple, and one might wonder what the small upswing is about.  But clearly, people don't do it like they did when they were all farmers.

Of course they don't because no one has any hope for the future. It's not the industrialization is the death of our culture.
When people have hope they have more kids when they don't feel secure they don't have kids.
Industrialization actually increased population growth in the industrial revolution.
In any case I think we can agree to disagree.

https://core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/02.html

https://core-econ.org/the-economy/book/text/02.html#subheadline

Guess I'll have to see if Pre-Boil to Boil is some kind of threshold of mindworm strength where they start being able to kill other mindworms, despite a -3 PLANET rating with a -30% Psi combat penalty.  Pre-Boil mindworms definitely couldn't do jack out in the hinterland.

Theres a strategy out there called the "Morgnaite mean green machine" I found once. You simply spam mindworms and eat the penalty. With a monolith, Biology lab, brood pit and maybe a wonder or two your mindworms start at decent level. Thenyou either eat the penalty or switch from free market and drown people in mindworms. I did this type of thing in an earlier version of your mod I think and it worked.
Just keep some conventional military units about just in case. The normal AI doesn't build trance units that much I don't think.

[bvanevery]

It's not the industrialization is the death of our culture.

I'm pretty sure the data is repeating in all countries that are industrializing, not just USA culture.  To that point, I happened to look at graphs of India and China.  They show the same trends.  China's trend is more severe I think because of the One Child Policy.  Still broadly speaking the same trend though.

You can look up African countries and you will see the same trends.  You are going to have a hard time demonstrating any different trend anywhere.  The UN data is very thorough.

Industrialization actually increased population growth in the industrial revolution.

I haven't studied that subject much, but my limited understanding is that Sewer Systems were the biggest single reason for population growth.  Just getting rid of that basic vector of disease.  To what extent is urban planning an industrial undertaking?  Probably people have written dissertations on that.

Textbook commentary when I have time.  4:30 AM here.

Theres a strategy out there called the "Morgnaite mean green machine" I found once. You simply spam mindworms and eat the penalty.

Why Morgan, unless you are rushing mindworms with money?  "Wealth" choice doesn't require Morgan in any way, and that's what gives you +INDUSTRY.  Planned gives +INDUSTRY and Morgan can't use it.

With a monolith, Biology lab, brood pit and maybe a wonder or two your mindworms start at decent level. Thenyou either eat the penalty or switch from free market and drown people in mindworms. I did this type of thing in an earlier version of your mod I think and it worked.

Is the point to use Morgan to get the needed techs faster?  Why not the University?

The normal AI doesn't build trance units that much I don't think.

I've seen them "here and there".  I'm done with Thinker mod for a long time, I think. 

[vonbach]

I haven't studied that subject much, but my limited understanding is that Sewer Systems were the biggest single reason for population growth.  Just getting rid of that basic vector of disease.  To what extent is urban planning an industrial undertaking?  Probably people have written dissertations on that.

Textbook commentary when I have time.  4:30 AM here.

Most cities were so small they didn't really need sewer systems in the past.  The population increased first then the sewer systems were invented as I recall.

Why Morgan, unless you are rushing mindworms with money?  "Wealth" choice doesn't require Morgan in any way, and that's what gives you +INDUSTRY.  Planned gives +INDUSTRY and Morgan can't use it

The reason its used with Morgan is because you can honestly. You don't need to rush mindworms with money. Spammed forests with a tree farm and rivers makes for a very powerful city. Even a normally terraformed  city works pretty well. Morgan is a builder and a dangerous one if left alone. Just rush buildings if you have to. In your mod he's probably the most powerful out of the factions. You cant use planned (thats one reason a growth alternative would be nice.) but you can use Green if you have too. Other factions like the University might be better at tech and can get them faster but they aren't as good at building.
Just like the base free Drones are just disgusting if played right. You don't even notice the research penalty. The reason they cant use Green is if they could they would be stupidly overpowered.

[dino]

> So here we have in the USA, people stop spewing babies.  There's a ripple, and one might wonder what the small upswing is about.  But clearly, people don't do it like they did when they were all farmers.

Contraception, legalised abortion, feminism.
Women in their 20s are showered with money, dik and attention by thirsty men and  government. They believe they'll conquer the world, make a career and they will not let a baby ruin their life.
In their 30s all above rapidly vanish, fertility decreases each year, so it's the last moment to have a family, but even then 2 children is enough, more would be too much work.
Since they get around to start a family so late, many don't have enough time to get even these 2 babies, so fertility is slightly below replacement.

In partiarchal traditional societies women in their 20s can't fook around, but marry a man in his 30s, who wants and have means to provide for a family.
So they start this baby making bussiness almost decade earlier than western women. I don't say women don't have right to not have babies mind you, I just describe the end result.
Patriarchal society like Islam, that doesn't empower women have all the babies and will replace western societes demographically. Thankfully we won't live long enough to see that.

***
Back to the in game social policies:
If some country with regulated economy like China set a goal to produce babies, it could tax into oblivion, or sent to goolag people who don't do baby quotas.
So, I'd say planned and fundamentalist/traditional should have GROWTH bonus. Not free market, or democracy.
Democracy could be understood as "free society", as opposed to police state and fundamentalism and have efficiency and science bonus.

[bvanevery]

In your mod he's probably the most powerful out of the factions.

I'm pretty sure that honor goes to the Pirates, but economically, Morgan is clearly #2 after that.  Militarily, my jury is out.  I don't know who is strongest anymore.  The Spartans got their Explore stimulus back for 1.29, so we'll see how they do.  And the Cult of Planet became Aggressive, so can they terrorize with +4 PLANET mindworms?

You cant use planned (thats one reason a growth alternative would be nice.)

Morgan's rich.  He can afford to put people into a Golden Age to get that last +2 GROWTH.

Other factions like the University might be better at tech and can get them faster but they aren't as good at building.

Morgan is good at money, not production, which is why I don't understand favoring him for chucking out units.  If you want a production advantage, the only actual choice in my mod is Domai with his +1 INDUSTRY.

Now of course in my mod, in recent versions, Capitalist is good at production.  So maybe you're right about Morgan now.     Historically though, why chuck units with Morgan?  Doesn't make sense, he was the worst faction in the game for that.

Just like the base free Drones are just disgusting if played right. You don't even notice the research penalty. The reason they cant use Green is if they could they would be stupidly overpowered.

Hm, my Free Drones can use Green, but of course they only get +1 INDUSTRY.  And no other faction gets an INDUSTRY bonus at all.  Most notably, Yang's was taken away.

[vonbach]

Contraception, legalised abortion, feminism.

Pretty much. Modern society is what tanks growth. Fundamentalist/traditionalist societies should have a growth bonus.

Morgan is good at money, not production, which is why I don't understand favoring him for chucking out units.  If you want a production advantage, the only actual choice in my mod is Domai with his +1 INDUSTRYNow of course in my mod, in recent versions, Capitalist is good at production.  So maybe you're right about Morgan now.     Historically though, why chuck units with Morgan?  Doesn't make sense, he was the worst faction in the game for that.

You don't need to have a +industry to be good at industry. Domi is simply better at it. All it takes is good terraforming and good planning.
Any faction can be turned into a builder faction if done right. Just because a faction is good at money doesn't mean
you cant warmonger with him. Or that you shouldn't. You don't have to play passive with a economic faction. Also bear in mind you can ride the economy penalties of police state with the Morganites. He was the worst at chucking military units not anymore though he has no support penalties anymore. Also mindworms in fungus cost no support.

Hm, my Free Drones can use Green, but of course they only get +1 INDUSTRY.  And no other faction gets an INDUSTRY bonus at all.  Most notably, Yang's was taken away.

Base Drones were weak if played by the AI but absolutely disgusting in the hands of a human player. Your mod is a bit weaker but has -2 drones which is nice. Basically the way to play the Drones is this. Big industry build lots of bases. Bases build lots of stuff. Big industry equals big army. Big army wins game. And it really is that simple.

[bvanevery]

So they start this baby making bussiness almost decade earlier than western women. I don't say women don't have right to not have babies mind you, I just describe the end result.

I'll provisionally buy your analysis without a lot of inspection or nuance on my part.  I'm sure someone more invested would find some point to quibble with.

Patriarchal society like Islam, that doesn't empower women have all the babies and will replace western societes demographically. Thankfully we won't live long enough to see that.

No it won't.  This is what data and observational science are good for, as opposed to arm chair opinion making.  It's not about "our values", or it's insufficiently so.  Saudi Arabia doesn't have a lot of our values:

Details Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

People tend to forget that Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country.  They have the same decline in birth rate as everyone else:

Details Indonesia

Indonesia

Frankly I doubt there is any country in the UN data, that exhibits anything other than this curve.  You're free to poke through all of them and see what you can find.  But data is data, it's not your opinion about what you "think" is going on.  We aren't up to our ass in Muslims no matter how many racist people say so.

So, I'd say planned and fundamentalist/traditional should have GROWTH bonus. Not free market, or democracy.

I actually did go down the "be fruitful and multiply" design path at an earlier stage of my modding.  For some reason I didn't think it was working.  I remember trying to empower the Believers as the "pop booming" faction, and it just didn't seem to work out.  Then I remember feeling that I couldn't just pile lots of bonuses into Fundamentalist, I can't have a "giveaway" choice where you get everything and have no liabilities.  I was specifically working against the self-imposed constraint of "3 benefits, 2 liabilities" at the time.

I have subsequently abandoned that constraint in favor of a more qualitative appraisal of what different buffs and debuffs are worth.  They are not all created equal IMO.  In particular, I decided that +1 ECONOMY and +2 EFFIC / JUSTICE are roughly equal in power.  I thought +2 GROWTH was as well, but now I've come to see it can have skewing effects on early game pop booming.  In 1.29 I nerfed Lal, he lost his +2 GROWTH factional advantage.  Last test game I played he did fine anyways.  Granted it was a Thinker mod game.  I don't think I've tested him with stock binary, but I'm not that worried for him.

I can revisit the question of Believer pop booming, but first I need to see some playtesting of them.  It's been a struggle for me to figure out a pro-Christian or at least neutral Christian game mechanical role for them.  The religious wack job role, that's been taken over by the Cult of Planet, even down to being Aggressive now.  I don't think we need to belabor that throwing people to mindworms is bad, m'kay?

Democracy could be understood as "free society", as opposed to police state and fundamentalism and have efficiency and science bonus.

I'm not going to give people a RESEARCH bonus at the very beginning of the game.  You have to work for it and gain Knowledge.  Even then, you only gain +1.  But you only have to take -1 POLICE to get it, so it's a tradeoff that way.

Democratic in my mod gives +1 ECONOMY.  You can plow that extra energy into your Labs budget if you like, and also take the consequences of not being able to use police.

Democratic in my mod already does give a mild +1 JUSTICE bonus.  Socialist gives more JUSTICE, +2.