SMACX AI Growth mod

[Geo]

What's the reason for renaming "Efficiency" to "Justice" in this SE table?

[bvanevery]

What's the reason for renaming "Efficiency" to "Justice" in this SE table?

"Efficiency" doesn't mean anything by itself, it's a nonsense word like "good" or "better".  Efficient at what?  If it's meant to mean "mo' betta at makin' money", well that's your ECONOMY, isn't it.

The original game mechanic in Civ II was "Corruption".  You built a Courthouse to decrease Corruption.  If you went to a Democracy, you magically ended all Corruption.  Ha!  Considering the example of a Courthouse, the opposite of Corruption is JUSTICE.

I have interpreted JUSTICE to encompass not just legal justice, but social justice as well.  The idea that "people get more upset somewhere in your empire because of Bureaucracy" is a game mechanical contrivance that doesn't make any sense.  However, the idea that people are upset because you smack their teeth out with billy clubs during riots, or disappear their families, or are constantly getting people killed in armed conflict, does make sense.  Ideally the concept of Bureaucracy would be renamed to something more evocative, like Cruelty.  But I'm not yet in the business of rewriting the Datalinks, and probably won't be.

[bvanevery]

   With no negative in GREEN, you've reduced the positive to a minimum to compensate.  Would giving it +2 to PLANET, or +PLANET, +JUSTICE be excessive?

I think they are.  They have no penalty at all, it's a free ride.  Remember the AI may hem and haw about what it's gonna do, but the human player is like, "Gimmie!"

From recent examples (in the EU, mostly) I don't see Socialism as being quite so terrible to the economy or resulting in large population growth.

The actual game mechanical effect of -2 ECONOMY is "-1 energy at every base".  It's a slap on the wrist.  The effect of -1 ECONOMY is negligible, you get -1 energy at your HQ.  I removed other ECONOMY penalties so there's nothing to stack.  This amounts to perceived discomfort with a scary visual gravitas.

For population growth, the pop booming game mechanic is either going to be in the game or it isn't.  Realism would say there's no such thing as pop booming, the whole idea is dumb and should be scrapped.  I don't have that harsh of an attitude about it.  Right now the basic game mechanic is "go Socialist, build a Children's Creche, go Eudaimonic, hey presto pop boom."  It takes a long time to get Eudaimonic so I don't have a problem with it.

Another way you can do it is "go Socialist, build a Children's creche, make your citizens massively happy wealthy and yuppie to trigger a Golden Age.  Hey presto pop boom."  I think it's probably difficult to pull that off, and is likely not rewarding for the diversionary effort spent, but I haven't seriously tried.  Nowadays the Believers would be the faction to try that with, since they have +1 ECONOMY.

Notably, Morgan can't do it.  He can only build a Children's Creche, go Eudaimonic late in the game, and trigger a Golden Age.

Meanwhile, when the Gaians are played by the AI, they won't do it.  A human player could have Socialist Gaians though.

If it didn't unbalance the gameplay, would setting SOCIALIST to +GROWTH, +JUSTICE, -INDUSTRY work?

Narratively that's pretty bad.  Domai and all his Workerists take over the State in order to... wreck industry?  Bear in mind that the original game's Planned economy had +INDUSTRY.

It's rather bland, without the strong contrasts, but then, so is GREEN now.

Green looks bland, because it doesn't have a bunch of juicy icons to make it visually "worth" something.  But the actual play mechanical difference between +0 PLANET and +1 PLANET is huge.  It's the difference between sweeping all the supply pods out of the early game and not.  You can amass huge mindworm armies even on +1 PLANET, given enough time wandering around in the wilderness.  Frankly for a long time during my modding, I seriously wondered what the point of ever going above +1 PLANET was.  Eventually I realized there are Psi combat advantage and eco-damage reasons to do so.  But +1 PLANET by itself is really really powerful.

Gameplay is king, so I accept the bad visuals on Green.

What is it you like about the contrasty version in your testing?

I saw a pretty big difference in the money output of Capitalist, Socialist, and Green.

INDUSTRY's icon is a nice one, isn't it?

We'll just have to admire Domai more often, because he's the only one that will be using it.

With my new PLANET friendly version of Eudaimonic, it would actually make more sense for Domai to be compulsively Socialist, and the Caretakers to be compulsively Eudaimonic.  Although what I dislike, is Domai's version of Socialist is Workerism, and that's not the kind of Socialist I've simulated.  Domai has this basic problem that his narrative is pretty narrowly focused.  His version of Socialist would be +JUSTICE +INDUSTRY --ECONOMY.  No GROWTH.

I bothered to make a change in the naming of stuff, in order to shed some light on what "Socialism" is really about, other than being an American swear word.  A narrative where Socialism = Workerism is against my authorial agenda.  Going that road, one might as well go back to Planned, insist that Socialism inherently doesn't work, always results in long lines for bread, cities covered in coal ash, a Single Party State kleptocracy, etc.  That's not what I want.  I want a more modern idea of Social Democracy to be represented, as it tends to actually appear in various wealthier European countries.

The historical terminology is really crap BTW.  Aside from many Americans insisting that Socialism automatically means Communism, and that Communism means a bunch of thugs running a Single Party State, the terms "Social Democracy" and "Democratic Socialism" don't mean the same things!

Criticism

From a purely socialist point of view, social democratic reform is criticized because it serves to devise new means to strengthen the capitalist system, which conflicts with the socialist goal of replacing capitalism with a socialist system.[165] Thus, it fails to address the systemic issues inherent in capitalism. The American democratic socialist philosopher David Schweickart contrasts social democracy with democratic socialism by defining the former as an attempt to strengthen the welfare state and the latter as an alternative economic system to capitalism. According to Schweickart, the democratic socialist critique of social democracy is that capitalism can never be sufficiently "humanized" and that any attempt to suppress its economic contradictions will only cause them to emerge elsewhere. For example, attempts to reduce unemployment too much would result in inflation and too much job security would erode labour discipline.[166] In contrast to social democracy, democratic socialists advocate a post-capitalist economic system based on either market socialism combined with workers' self-management or on some form of participatory-economic planning.[167]

[bvanevery]

Having the Data Angels focus on Conquer only does not work.  As of MY 2202 in my current game they only have 5 cities.  They are completely isolated with no enemies and plenty of land.  By comparison the Cult of Planet, which had a seriously pathetic start for some reason, has 9 cities.  I have 12 cities as the Morganites.  They're pretty good cities and I've dominated power graph until recently.

The Hive and the Spartans have gone totally nuts with more cities than I can readily count, probably on the order of 25.  They each had large land masses in which they were unopposed.  I would say that means I don't need to worry about tweaking those factions.

[Vidsek]

   Ack!  I let a typo through in my last post: I meant to ask about setting SOCIALIST to +GROWTH, +JUSTICE, -ECONOMY,  NOT -INDUSTRY.   Ie. basicly just reducing the degree of GROWTH and ECONOMY, not changing one of them to another social.

   I understand your clarification that the hits to ECONOMY are not that onerous and withdraw my questioning of them.   On the double bonus to GROWTH, I'll go with it as long as testing does not uncover any problems with it.

   On the Data Angels' focus, which other one will you add to Conquer?

[bvanevery]

Angels get Explore, Conquer same as many other factions.  Explore is the magic sauce that causes early empire growth.  Every faction except the Usurpers has it as part of their research now.

EDIT: actually I realized that's not true.  The Cybernetic Consciousness is Discover, Conquer and they haven't been doing that well.  I'll need to evaluate them.

[vonbach]

I want a more modern idea of Social Democracy to be represented, as it tends to actually appear in various wealthier European countries.

The only reason states like that can exist in Europe is the USA basically foots the bill for their defense spending. Socalism works until you run
out of other peoples money.

[bvanevery]

Don't be so quick to assume the USA is doing the world a favor.  The Military Industrial Complex is mostly in business for itself.  This was demonstrated very thoroughly to me in Iraq War 2.  We never even got any oil; the military contracts alone were reason enough for Haliburton etc. to egg on the war.  Basically, we stupid taxpayers pay for all this military stuff.  The MIC people laugh all the way to the bank and lobby Congress to keep the money flowing to them.

So yeah, Europe and Japan aren't spending on big bloated Defense.  The USA does it, not so much that we have to, but rather the MIC wants to.

What would the world really look like if the USA wasn't spending, spending, spending on military stuff?  Well, the Soviets got their ass handed to them in Afghanistan.  Chechnya hasn't been fun for them either.  The Ukraine has probably been more fun, as well as messing with our elections.  I've lost track of how they're doing in Syria.  I think all these things demonstrate that Russian power has an effect, but it's limited.

Israel wouldn't be stomping Palestinians quite so hard if they didn't have all that juicy US aid.  The Middle East would still be a mess.

China would be doing the same things it's doing.  Mostly they can take over economically, they don't need to do things militarily.   

[bvanevery]

EDIT: actually I realized that's not true.  The Cybernetic Consciousness is Discover, Conquer and they haven't been doing that well.  I'll need to evaluate them.

I'm gonna try setting them back to Explore, Discover.  Also give them +1 PROBE and Polymorphic Encryption on all units.  Deirdre's got +1 RESEARCH and free Biology Labs.  Zhakarov's got +2 RESEARCH, free Biology Labs, and free Network Nodes.  The Cyborgs definitely need something to keep up.

I think Explore, Conquer has fixed the Data Angels.  Although my current game might not be a completely fair test as they started near the Monsoon Jungle.

I am wondering if the Pirates would do ok as a Build only faction, seeing as how they otherwise dominate everything.

[bvanevery]

Socalism works until you run out of other peoples money.

BTW you do know that the national debt of good ole' CAPITALIST USA is huge, right?  The USA does not make this money / wealth.  It spends money / wealth that does not exist.  There was even talk, sometime in the past 10 years, of downgrading the USA's lending power status, I forget the exact term.  Can't quite remember what happened.  Probably around the time our housing bubble burst.  Anyways, there's hardly any politician in the USA that we can take seriously as having fiscal discipline.  The Republican attitudes towards spending in recent years are laughable, there's no credibility in that party of seeking to reduce debt or costs.  They just bloat the budget on different things than Democrats do.  This Monopoly Money the country runs on, this infinite slush fund of wealth that doesn't actually have to be made, is way too attractive to them.

I don't know if the country will collapse someday under the weight of this, but if it does, it won't be from being Socialist.  Spending other people's money, and money that doesn't even exist, is something Capitalists know how to do all too well!  Especially, those on Wall St. who have inside information on how the money supply is going to change, have all kinds of advantages over us mere mortals "downstream" many months later.

How does the country keep up this currency charade?  I think the big military has something to do with it, the ability to bomb stuff.  Also we're a large country with lots of natural resources.  US manufacturing does just fine, contrary to some popular belief during [Sleezebag]'s election campaign.  We have a certain amount of real military power and real goods we can produce.

Still, ya gotta wonder about these fictions of money and balance sheets.

Vonbach, do you really have any personal concept of the collective delusion of money?  It's all a fantasy about whether people are willing to exchange or not.  Go look at a country with hyperinflation, to see the delusion.  You can live with ideas like "your money" and "Socialists are bad people who take your money", only because the currency system you live within hasn't collapsed.  There's a sense in which it isn't your money, it's your position within a social construct.  It can disintegrate.

Socialism is a set of various (varying) beliefs.  So is Capitalism.  Changes in what people believe, can cause people to die.

Like AIG.  Do you remember the phrase, "too big to fail" ?  Whose money do you think paid for that?

You familiar with the phrase "Corporate Welfare" ?

[vonbach]

Don't be so quick to assume the USA is doing the world a favor.

I don't think we are doing the world a favor or our own country for that matter. I'd like the USA to return to being an isolationist republic but were not in charge of our own country.

BTW you do know that the national debt of good ole' CAPITALIST USA is huge, right?  The USA does not make this money / wealth.  It spends money / wealth that does not exist.  There was even talk, sometime in the past 10 years, of downgrading the USA's lending power status, I forget the exact term.  Can't quite remember what happened.  Probably around the time our housing bubble burst.  Anyways, there's hardly any politician in the USA that we can take seriously as having fiscal discipline.  The Republican attitudes towards spending in recent years are laughable, there's no credibility in that party of seeking to reduce debt or costs.  They just bloat the budget on different things than Democrats do.  This Monopoly Money the country runs on, this infinite slush fund of wealth that doesn't actually have to be made, is way too attractive to them.

I don't know if the country will collapse someday under the weight of this, but if it does, it won't be from being Socialist.  Spending other people's money, and money that doesn't even exist, is something Capitalists know how to do all too well!  Especially, those on Wall St. who have inside information on how the money supply is going to change, have all kinds of advantages over us mere mortals "downstream" many months later.

The USA is not a healthy capitalist society its a usury based debt system. Sooner or later all systems like this fail.
Thats why usury is forbidden in the Bible. Its debt slavery. Money should be treated like a public utility not the
reason for a society.

You familiar with the phrase "Corporate Welfare" ?

Yes I am. I do not agree with it.

Socialism is a set of various (varying) beliefs.

I will concede there is more than one kind of socialism. It depends on what type of socialism you are talking about.
Socialism had a very different meaning in the past. What the welfare state does now was done by religious charities
in the USA's past. You seem to view socialism as a benign welfare state and it can be set up that way I suppose.
But I simply don't trust the government to be in my best interests. I wish it was.

[bvanevery]

I don't think we are doing the world a favor or our own country for that matter. I'd like the USA to return to being an isolationist republic but were not in charge of our own country.

That is a basic problem of real systems rather than idealized ones.  We are never fully in control.  Even Stalin wasn't fully in control.  Peasants revolted, Nazis invaded.

The USA is not a healthy capitalist society its a usury based debt system. Sooner or later all systems like this fail.

Ha, agreement!  Well, not sure if failures will be temporary or permanent, as we're still here.  But the failures do happen and they cause tremendous misery.  My circumstances now, are partly due to the dot.com bust, although that's not the only reason I live out of a car and give away a SMAC mod.  The bust definitely trashed my early "career" though.

Thats why usury is forbidden in the Bible. Its debt slavery. Money should be treated like a public utility not the
reason for a society.

But I say, no such system of "healthy capitalism" has ever existed.  Wishing for it, wanting it to be that way... is the mirror image of Socialists saying "real Socialism has never been tried".

I wonder how it worked out for the Confucianists and the maritime expansionist Eunuchs, back in 1435-ish?  The latter were all interested in expansion, trade, what we might in hindsight call the beginnings of Capitalism.  Certainly, it proved to be the key to European domination of the globe within 100 years.  But the Confucians believed in agrarianism and the land.  They got in a civil war.  The Confucians came out on top, and they burned the Eunuch fleets in order to do so.  They ordered China to be closed to trade for the next 150 years, passing the initiative irretrievably to the Europeans.  Even though the Chinese got out on the water first!  They had treasure boats as long as a football field, off the coast of what's now Mozambique in 1435.

I will concede there is more than one kind of socialism. It depends on what type of socialism you are talking about.
Socialism had a very different meaning in the past.

Well, Revolutionary Socialism was tried.  And it was a complete failure.  Just puts a new goon squad in charge.  Lotsa people get killed, power and graft remain.  Especially from what I've read in a biography of Stalin, the theoretical ideas just became cudgels to beat political opponents with.  "Politically correct" views (that's the origin of the term) changed with whatever Stalin wanted to do at the time.  He was completely unprincipled.  Many bureaucratic officials living through these events knew this.  They said, did, and responded to whatever kept them from getting killed.  For a time there were these Party rituals of debate, where the opponents positioned each other according to conflicting ideologies.  Ultimately, Stalin marginalizes and mostly kills them all, but there was a time when he had to play the "word dance", when he wasn't supreme yet.

What the welfare state does now was done by religious charities
in the USA's past. You seem to view socialism as a benign welfare state and it can be set up that way I suppose.
But I simply don't trust the government to be in my best interests. I wish it was.

I don't trust government.  Any government.  But some things are not going to get done any other way.  For instance, religious charities never defended the environment.  I don't think they can handle various police functions on the big scale either.  Religions also have biases about what is a crime or isn't, so I don't want them handling certain things.  The separation of Church and State is a basically good idea.

Separation of powers and transparency are important principles for governments.  Governments are run by people and people will commit crimes.  So you need the tools to straighten them out.  Expecting people to do anything nicely is a pipe dream.  At some point, some kind of force has to be used.

[vonbach]

But I say, no such system of "healthy capitalism" has ever existed.

Yes it has the revolutionary war was fought in large part to free ourselves from usury banking systems.
There were times in the past when we didn't have interest based banking systems.
Money is a tool no more no less.

I wonder how it worked out for the Confucianists and the maritime expansionist Eunuchs, back in 1435-ish?  The latter were all interested in expansion, trade,

It worked out fine for the Chinese they chose order over profit. Something the oriental types are wont to do. Its also the reason the Chinese are so touchy about religious movements. They've had very bad experiences in the past.

For instance, religious charities never defended the environment.

You'd be surprised actually. Monks used to reclaim land from swamps and such back in the middle ages.

I don't think they can handle various police functions on the big scale either.

They do but in different ways. In a religious society (note that a religious society isn't necessarily called a theocracy, the USA was for most of its history a fundamentalist society) religious attitudes tend to lower crime in the first place.

Well, Revolutionary Socialism was tried.  And it was a complete failure. 

Depends on how you measure success. The USSR was a clownish 1984 slave state keeping its rulers in charge through naked fear. So it worked pretty well in a satanic way. National socialism was also tried and such systems still exist today in small countries. Basically the government in a system like that exists to serve its dominant people.

[bvanevery]

In modding news, I'm finding the -3 JUSTICE penalty for going Fundamentalist Green Power to be rather onerous.  I had a hefty income and now I've got nothing!  Considering the amount of economic infrastructure I've already developed, basically Tree Farms and the Planetary Energy Grid, I think this is too much.  It was an achievement to get the AI to swallow these penalties, but the human player has to deal with them too.  Ergo I'm going to try the +JUSTICE +GREEN idea, much as I dislike giving away more stuff without a penalty.  Making this change, my income went from -1 to +17.  I used to have over 100 credits/turn when I was Democratic Green Wealth.

Yes it has the revolutionary war was fought in large part to free ourselves from usury banking systems.
There were times in the past when we didn't have interest based banking systems.
Money is a tool no more no less.

Well that's not what I learned back in grade school but whatever.  I will say, the system of straight up slavery was retained, so I really can't have a serious discussion about "usury" until Abolitionism is a thing.

I wonder how it worked out for the Confucianists and the maritime expansionist Eunuchs, back in 1435-ish?  The latter were all interested in expansion, trade,

It worked out fine for the Chinese they chose order over profit. Something the oriental types are wont to do.

Its also the reason the Chinese are so touchy about religious movements. They've had very bad experiences in the past.

Oh come now.  They're touchy about religion because it was Communist doctrine that religion is bad.  Look at Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  They're religious as @#$# now, to the point of being basically state sponsored.  The Communists are still in charge in China so the official party line is still "religion is bad".  Especially to the degree it challenges Communist authority, such as with the persecution of Falun Gong.

You'd be surprised actually. Monks used to reclaim land from swamps and such back in the middle ages.

Find me some monks cleaning up an oil spill in the modern era and I'll believe it's relevant.

Basically the government in a system like that exists to serve its dominant people.

Our government serves its dominant people as well.  The scraps are just better in an industrial democracy.

[vonbach]

Oh come now.  They're touchy about religion because it was Communist doctrine that religion is bad. 

No they are touchy about religion because there was a religious peasant revolt that killed 20 million people or so in their past.
It was the Taiping rebellion from 1850-1864 and it was one of the worst experiences in Chinese history.

Our government serves its dominant people as well.

The people in our government exist to serve the government actually.

In modding news, I'm finding the -3 JUSTICE penalty for going Fundamentalist Green Power to be rather onerous.  I had a hefty income and now I've got nothing!  Considering the amount of economic infrastructure I've already developed, basically Tree Farms and the Planetary Energy Grid, I think this is too much.  It was an achievement to get the AI to swallow these penalties, but the human player has to deal with them too.  Ergo I'm going to try the +JUSTICE +GREEN idea, much as I dislike giving away more stuff without a penalty.

Will the AI swallow an industry penalty? If so maybe giving it an industry penalty is a good idea. Just make Green poweful  enough
to compensate.