Renaming EFFICiency

[bvanevery]

I'm starting to come to the view that EFFICiency was a poor choice of name for what it actually does.  Yes it denotes financial efficiency the farther and farther you get away from your capitol.  But its main noticeable, player visible effect upon the game, is making your people happy or unhappy as your empire gets bigger.  I have thought about renaming it SPRAWL, but unfortunately that's stated in the negative.  What I'm saying is, the higher your UP ARROW is, the more people you can make happy.  SIZE is another possible term that comes to mind, but it's vague on what's allowed to get bigger.  ENFORCEMENT or JUSTICE might be relevant concepts.

I have decided to rename Planned economy to Socialist, and Free Market to Capitalist.  The actual faction diplomatic dialogue never minced any words about these being the underlying concepts, and I'm starting to think it's important, as a matter of authorial voice, not to beat around the bush about what's being discussed.  Some impressionable kid, especially in the USA, may play my mod and see the "Planned" economy.  But what does that mean?  Does it mean you get more military stuff?  Does it mean Workerism, that people are doing a better job in factories and coughing up more tanks?

I think Socialism is a much better term to stay focused on.  I've spent a lot of time this year reading biographies of Mao Tse-Tung and Joseph Stalin.  I have no doubt whatsoever that the character of Chairman Yang is based on Mao Tse-Tung, with some ascetic cyberpunk woo mumbo jumbo added.  "Mao in the future, doing 'Chinese' stuff."  Anyways, people tend to conflate Socialism with historical Communist regimes, like Mao's or Stalin's.  A correct description of such regimes is a Socialist Police State.  Whereas we could see various modern European countries as Democratic Socialist countries, if a Socialist party manages to get into power.  For instance, France, and their propensity for national strikes.  Socialists never get into power in the USA, and so we can say it is always a Democratic Capitalist country.

Modern day China is a Capitalist Police State, and for quite awhile I've wanted to simulate that in SMAC.  I think the idea that "Asian despotism" marches on into the future just like historical Communism, is a bit tone deaf to all the changes that China has gone through since Mao's death.  Similarly after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Putin's Russia is also a Capitalist Police State.  It might have a bit more operative democracy than China, but not much.  Don't kid yourself about who's in charge over there.

So how am I trying to model Socialism?

• +2 EFFICiency
• +2 GROWTH
• -1 ECONOMY

The basic idea is, all the money gets spent on making more people happy.  More and more people are allowed to be happy in more cities, at a greater distance from the capitol.  This is very different from the stock game's treatment of Planned economy, which seems to equate rapid GROWTH with inevitable Bureaucratic inefficiency.  As though we're back in Stalinist Russia or Maoist China, and as if they experienced growth in those times, instead of actually killing lots and lots of people!

Socialist is in contrast to my new version of Green:

• +1 EFFICiency
• +2 PLANET
• -1 GROWTH
• -1 SUPPORT

The message here is that Green is not about making the most people happy, or spending all the money on the people, or ensuring larger and larger populations.  It's about slowing population growth down, slowing resource consumption down, and making humanity's footprint smaller.  This does make more people happy than the Free Market alternative, but people aren't the priority and it cannot accomplish as much as spending directly on people first.  In the real world, tension exists between First World yuppies who want various sustainable green practices, and the developing world that hasn't industrialized yet.  Sometimes you get forced into tough choices between voting for the environment and voting for (typically poor) people.

My biggest problem with the simplistic label 'EFFICiency's is it connotes unqualified betterness.  Who doesn't want to be more efficient?  Who wants to be called lazy and slothful?  So we get told by things in the faction profiles, that the Gaians are more 'efficient'.  Well, efficient at what?  Efficient at providing industrial infrastructure, I don't think so!

It's easier to credit the Cyborgs with being 'efficient', but the phrase ruthlessly efficient springs to mind as well.  Having the State be efficient isn't necessarily a good idea.  It typically means consolidation of power into the hands of the few.  In the USA we have the separation of powers: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial.  People complain about 'gridlock' in politics, but it was designed that way.  You don't want all 3 of these marching in lock step with one another!

In sum, I'm looking for the word that means "makes more people happy", while still somehow indicating that it's also about distance from your capitol.  ADMINISTRATION springs to mind, but it's a mouthful.  SERVICES; too bland.  SOCIAL SERVICES is more descriptive but not catchy.

WELFARE?

EQUITY?  JUSTICE?

[bvanevery]

I took my dog for a walk and had time to mull it over.  I'm going with JUSTICE.  The original game mechanic in Civ II is you built a Courthouse to reduce Corruption.  SMAC abstracted that out, so that you wouldn't have to build an individual building in every city.  Then they added the happiness / Bureaucracy mechanic on top of it.  JUSTICE can mean rooting out corruption, and it can mean social justice.  I think this label will give clear guidance on what you'll experience in a POLICE STATE: no justice!  It puts nuance on whether Gaians or Cyborgs do all that much to provide justice; some, but not as much as the stock game would have you believe.

[ars_belli]

Your economic names are much more transparent than the originals.  The redefinition of Green is cynical, but definitely realistic. 

I've been confused for a while about what EFFIC actually does.  I.e., how does "making people happy" translate into gameplay effects?  Is it a proxy for civilian morale, controlling frequency of drone riots?  Does it decrease the wastage per turn of materials in a base, acting as a measure of (lack of) bureaucracy?

[bvanevery]

EFFIC counteracts the Bureaucracy penalty, so you can have more cities before people become unhappy due to the size of your empire.  EFFIC also causes less energy to be wasted the farther you get from your capitol.  You can observe pretty strong effects of EFFIC when conquering a city very far away from your capitol.  You can put all kinds of facilities in such a city to improve it, expensive facilities, only to find that the city produces almost no credits or research.

[ars_belli]

What made you discount EQUITY?  That carries both a financial connotation and a judicial one.  It is less transparent than WELFARE, which clearly suggests the happiness of your citizens.

[bvanevery]

To me personally, "equity" has the connotation of ownership in a startup company.  Pretty lousy connotation for a sci-fi game IMO.  Justice was clearly a superior term to equity.