Commentary on Unused and Unimplemented Game Features

[Dio]

I know of some unimplemented game features and can comment on the potential original design and implementation of these features.

One of the biggest unimplemented game features remains the unused Citizen bit field in Alphax.txt. Effects for this unused bit field appear in the help.txt file.
 
The unused citizen effect bit field appears as a possible precursor to both the base facilities modifiers on morale and other components of base outputs and the social engineering effects on bases and units. This feature implies the base citizens would have had more effects on game play and probably produce numerical additive bonuses for a bases' features similar to the executable file's handling of current production bonuses from facilities and social effects like MORALE.

The biggest issue with implementing this feature arises from finding space within the memory registers since the developers replaced the executable space for this feature in the CITIZENS section of alphax with other game components. The other issue with implementing this feature remains the space for inclusion of those new values into the existing procedures for calculating efficiency, commerce, support, base psi defense, mineral output, and morale.

(click to show/hide)

A copy of the Alphax Citizen field with the unused seven bits.

Technician,       Technicians,         None,    Fusion,  3, 0, 0, 0000000
Doctor,           Doctors,             None,    CentMed, 0, 2, 0, 0000000
Librarian,        Librarians,          PlaNets, MindMac, 0, 0, 3, 0000000
Engineer,         Engineers,           Fusion,  Disable, 3, 0, 2, 0000000
Telepath,         Telepathi,           CentMed, AlphCen, 2, 2, 0, 0000000
Thinker,          Thinkers,            MindMac, AlphCen, 0, 1, 3, 0000000
Transcend,        Transcendi,          AlphCen, Disable, 2, 2, 4, 0000000
Drone,            Drones,
Worker,           Workers,
Talent,           Talents,

The help file descriptions of the unused citizen field in alphax.

#CITIZENHECK
^Commerce bonus for base.
^Production bonus for base.
^Psi defense bonus for base.
^Morale bonus for base.
^Unit support bonus for base.
^Efficiency bonus for base.
^Aliens bonus for base.

[Dio]

Another unimplemented feature remains a distinction between "Ruthless" and "Idealistic" social engineering choices. Many of the social engineering choices in the original release for the game in the politics, economics, and values choice categories produce social effects with almost reciprocal positive and negative effects like Power's +2 MORALE, +2 SUPPORT, -2 INDUSTRY compared to Wealth's +1 INDUSTRY, +1 ECONOMY, -2 MORALE. I suspect Brian Reynolds originally intended the faction social choices to possess a feature for swapping the positive and negative social effects of the social models depending on some faction characteristics. This position on "ruthless" or "idealistic" social choices would have allowed the player to make those decisions with separate social categories for the areas stated in the interview.

Circumstantial evidence for this appears in unused labels in the labels.txt file and position of those labels within the executable file. The unused labels for "ruthless" and "idealistic" appear above the "social engineering" label that appears in the header for the social engineering table's bottom panel in the final product. This circumstantial location alludes to a probable relationships to an earlier design of the social engineering table with eight categories of social categories and a ruthless or idealistic social choice per social category.


Brian Reynolds discusses these features in the August 11, 1998 interview at this link.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/an-interview-with-brian-reynolds/1100-2564268/p-4.html/

Cited quote from the interview:

(click to show/hide)

In addition to scientific advances, Alpha Centauri speculates on the future development of human societies. As the leader of your faction, you map out your vision of future utopia by deciding where you stand on a whole series of value choices - economics, liberties, religion, health care, military service, education, environment, and information. On each issue, you can choose to take a "ruthless," "moderate," or "idealistic" stance, with a variety of consequences. Choose the ruthless "free market" economy, which promotes efficiency and economic growth at the expense of the environment, or the idealistic "fair market" economy, which encourages citizen loyalty, population expansion, and raw industrial output at the expense of economic growth.

Similarly, you may choose (ruthlessly) to conscript a massive, inexpensive, but ill-trained army, or you can (idealistically) raise an all-volunteer, highly trained, and very expensive force. Ruthlessly, you maintain ironfisted control of your information networks, preventing enemy infiltration, not to mention the corrupting influences of pornography and subversive literature. Or idealistically, you open your networks to the free exchange of ideas and information, reaping the rewards of greater creativity and productivity but running the risks of infiltration, corruption, or even open rebellion. Idealistic public health care keeps your citizens happy and healthy, not to mention loyal; a ruthless health care "for profit" scheme encourages economic efficiency, not to mention advanced medical research.

[Nexii]

Interesting. Yea I imagine it was probably a binary system with more choices instead of the trinary one they went with.

I imagine Police State and Democracy would be opposed
Free/Fair Market(Planned)
Power/Wealth
Fundamentalist/Knowledge maybe?
I dunno where Green fits in or what would have opposed it, maybe a Survival mentality (fight Planet instead of going with it)

[bvanevery]

The trinary system does ultimately have some problems.  In  my most recent AAR I've become very annoyed at the false choice between my Socialist (Planned) and Green.  Similarly, what's the difference between Police State and my Theocratic (Fundamentalist) ?  Did I miss a memo on how Iran or North Korea are run?  Or now, Afghanistan?

Free Market is the capitalist pigs destroying the environment.  Green opposes it.  Morgan vs. Deirdre.

[Nexii]

Fair, if you look in each tier PS/Demo oppose the most for SEs. FM/Green (on Planet, Effic is secondary), and Power/Wealth. That leaves Fundamentalist, Planned, Knowledge without opposition.

Then for Ruthless / Idealistic:
Police State / Democracy
Free Market / Green
Power / Wealth
Knowledge / Fundamentalist (Belief)

Planned, well you could have Centralized and Decentralized but I don't know. Collectivist / Individualist seems more like a faction trait than a choice.

Future SEs kinda bothered me similarly. Cybernetic and Thought Control are just different kinds of Dystopian.

[EmpathCrawler]

From an old post of mine.

Some lazy Saturday morning reading led me to a potential bug fix here:

https://github.com/b-casey/OpenSMACX/blob/defe36bdb1604c738f9cdf842ce1c8caabc456f1/src/faction.cpp#L222

Circumstantial evidence suggests that this Psi Gate prereq check in the climactic_battle function is legacy code left over from when Psi Gates apparently had some role in a Transcendence Victory. I wonder if it makes the AI unduly agitated too early at the arbitrary tech of Matter Transmission?

See this thread on reddit regarding the evidence: https://old.reddit.com/r/alphacentauri/comments/iua8v2/miriams_psiicide_put_in_another_light/

[bvanevery]

Cybernetic and Thought Control are just different kinds of Dystopian.

Yeah at some point in my modding I made the conceptual leap, that despite all the positive bennies the original game gave Cybernetic in the SE table, the idea is not good.  And that Miriam in the secret project videos had said all along that it's totally not good, that We Must Dissent.  This led me to having her be incapable of choosing Cybernetic rather than incapable of choosing Knowledge.  Which further led me to see Cybernetic as this anti-Planet machine consciousness dystopia, and Eudiamonic as the biologically friendly Planet friendly category.  This took quite awhile.  It proceeded in stages spread rather far apart from each other over the course of maybe 2 years.

Oh, and I can encode dystopias more directly because I have JUSTICE, not EFFIC.

Thought Control though, I do not give a JUSTICE penalty.  If your thoughts are controlled, you don't know if you're experiencing justice or not!  I said RESEARCH gets penalized because it would probably require some personal creative spark, some motivation and impetus, and you've been robbed of that.

[bvanevery]

Police State / Democracy

Yang / Lal

Free Market / Green

Morgan / Deirdre

Knowledge / Fundamentalist (Belief)

Zhakarov / Miriam

These are the 3 major axes of conflict for the original game.  Whether they intended to do more conflicts as a matter of game design or mechanics, they clearly settled on the 6 major protagonists for the narratives of the game.  They weren't going to do art assets and voice acting for an infinite number of possibilities.

Power / Wealth

This is the odd one out, the tack-on.  Santiago.  Corresponds with her not being a credible military leader.  She never gives an order, never takes over anything, and never shoots a rifle.  Rather than be a brass tacks military leader, she is asked to philosophize in the same way that all the other philosophers do.  And, she's bad at it.  Frankly she's a diversity hire.

Pitting her against Academia is silly, the Power / Knowledge thing.  Nobody in the original game is actually a representative of Wealth, although you might expect Morgan to pursue it. 

Game mechanically, Santiago exists to make the factions be 7 instead of 6.  To have imbalance, so that the breaking of alliances is easier.  It is worth noting that the board game Diplomacy also had 7 Great Powers.  Free form alliance games based on the number 7, is a proven game mechanical model with known properties.

[Nexii]

Yea the Wealth SE is sort of an odd one. Does it mean money (ECON) or well-being (perhaps GROWTH or EFFIC)? INDUSTRY seems odd to me as a base benefit.

I guess since none of the factions were designed around the SE we'll never know.

It'd probably be some sort of pacifist faction, but set apart from Morgan and PKs. The Data Angels are kind of the closest thing but they were written to have Democratic agenda. Wealth might have fit them better, perhaps stealing energy for the benefit of all? Although I have Wealth as reducing PROBE due to greed/bribery... kind of goes against their strengths...

[bvanevery]

I guess since none of the factions were designed around the SE we'll never know.

The Morganite quotes were designed to show a contrast between the creation of knowledge and wealth.  "But research grants are expensive, and you must justify your existence by providing not only knowledge, but concrete and profitable applications as well."   This was squarely aimed at the realities of academic vs. corporate research in the 1990s, and presumably they have not changed.  Microsoft Research in particular grabbed up CS researchers lest any of them invent The Next Big Thing and MS wouldn't be the ones to have their fingers in it.  Researchers are seen by corporations as strategic armaments, that they may not value, but they don't want other corporations to have access to.

Factions only get 1 Agenda, so for Morgan that's Free Market.  Wealth is sorta like repeat and amplify Free Market.  No other faction was designed to be a wealth grubber, not even in the expansion.

Cha Dawn eschews Wealth in the original game, can't pick it.  But, that's a pretty stunted one note storyline, not much of a developed theme.  The prophet isn't into wealth... ok, how about all the prophets and evangelicals who are very much into wealth?  I changed Cha Dawn's aversion in my mod to Democratic.  He's a cult leader, you're gonna follow him.  He espouses Eudaimonic which is pro-Planet, and he can be totally cynical about how he gets there.  I've seen him go Free Market!  Boy did that make my Deirdre mad in my last AAR.

I made my Pirates the wealth grubbers.  The industrializing dialogue doesn't fit, but being totally into wealth sure does.  Laying back and piling on the wealth also happens to be a good strategy for them, because they've got a minerals and energy rich moat all around 'em.  Why fight?  Just make money and get big.

The Data Angels are kind of the closest thing but they were written to have Democratic agenda.

Yeah, but, they don't have enough writing for me to be loyal to that idea.  Also they're not really written to be democratic, they're written to be anarchic.  For a long time I had Roze as my exemplar of Thought Control.  A darker interpretation where all that ++PROBE went to her head and she gets her kicks mind controlling everybody.  Eventually due to realities of play mechanics in my tech tree, I relented.  Now the Data Angels are my 1 faction in the game that has no Agenda at all.  I figure that's closer to being anarchist.  Conqueror Marr stepped up as the proponent of Thought Control, so that I don't have to have another Socialist or another Power faction.

[Nexii]

Planned / Cybernetic can oppose (centralized / devolution)
Eudaimonic / Thought Control as well (utopian / dystopian)

Those are my opposition pairings for now. Does make me wonder if there were 6 pairings originally for ruthless/idealistic

Wealth for Pirates makes sense. I don't know about them being pacifist... I think I have them at aggressive but might tone them down to erratic. My design was to have four of each (pacifist, erratic, aggressive).
Angels I'll keep TC to have someone fill that role, not a fan of the alien facs. Don't think it's a big stretch, wanting to be in control of all the information.
Rest would all be the same for agendas. Aversions become the oppositions.

[bvanevery]

Planned / Cybernetic can oppose (centralized / devolution)

Uuuh, maybe I just know a little too much about the history of socialism and cybernetic economic management experiments, such as Chile's Project CyberSyn from 1971 to 1973.  I can't see these ideas as opposed.  Why wouldn't rational cyborgs plan stuff out?  Why wouldn't planners use computers to plan stuff?  Did you fall for the line in the original game that Planned has to be "inefficient" ?  And that cyborgs are "efficient" ?  Efficient at what?  Nazis were efficient at running railroad cars and gas chambers....

Wealth for Pirates makes sense. I don't know about them being pacifist... I think I have them at aggressive but might tone them down to erratic.

It was more of a game mechanical decision.  Aggressive pirates are extremely obnoxious and annoying.  They're just this never ending spam wave that forces you to build artillery pieces to repel them.  It's not basically fun after awhile because the AI never gets tired of spamming you with BS units on your coast.  Whereas, the Pirates are very well situated to run a pacifist long term strategy.  Who can invade them, or even wants to?  Nobody else is getting +1 minerals in the water.

[Nexii]

Yea I didn't agree with CyCon being the EFFIC faction either. I have them currently with +2 POLICE (due to being more rational, less dissent).

It's a bit of a stretch but my interpretation of Cybernetic was many specialized AIs working together in a very large decentralized/distributed network. There wouldn't be a centralized 'hive-mind' like the later version of Star Trek Borg. More like original Borg. Many of these would be AIs integrated with people..

Planned I have at -ECON right now. The cost I suppose of distributing resources better (+GROWTH, +INDUSTRY)

Don't have anything at -EFFIC right now either, it's just too steep of a curve on the downside. Instead some choices are 'less corrupt'. Democracy and Knowledge for sure... but yea it's kind of a stretch for Cybernetic. Perhaps the 'all connected' is a similar kind of open share, but at the cost of privacy...

[Trenacker]

The trinary system does ultimately have some problems.  In  my most recent AAR I've become very annoyed at the false choice between my Socialist (Planned) and Green.  Similarly, what's the difference between Police State and my Theocratic (Fundamentalist) ?  Did I miss a memo on how Iran or North Korea are run?  Or now, Afghanistan?

Free Market is the capitalist pigs destroying the environment.  Green opposes it.  Morgan vs. Deirdre.

You may not have been asking this question, but it could be that the Planned Economics/Green dichotomy reflected the era in which Alpha Centauri was developed, when the Soviet Union was well-known for the ecological catastrophes caused by its industrial economy.

The same could be at the heart of why Police State was considered an option apart from Theocracy. States like Soviet Russia, Tito's Yugoslavia, and Ceaușescu's Romania were avowedly atheistic.

[bvanevery]

As I learn about so-called EcoSocialism, I'm aware of some problematic differences from straight up Socialism.  Often, not enough emphasis on workers, and not enough wrapping one's head around the business environments that workers are currently stuck existing in.  So yes, it's possible for there to be differences.  I do object to the game portraying them as stark differences though, like things either camp would go to war over.

The game does play up there being some kind of difference between the operative methods of a religious vs. atheistic police state.  They call one Fundamentalist, and the other a Police State.  They're both actually police states, and use exactly the same methods to control the population, in real life.  Secret police, making you say certain things, do certain things, carry certain things, not carry other certain things, rat on your neighbors, publicly execute people, etc.  I was particularly 'impressed' by ISIS throwing gay people off the tops of minarets.  Now that's a very dramatic public statement.

I might like someone to explain to me, what the realistic game mechanical difference could possibly be, when there's no real world evidence for it.  It's really really apparent in the history of the North Korean dictators, where they have been regarded as religious figureheads.  You do worship the leader over there.  Those leaders do have special powers beyond those of ordinary human beings over there.  There's a really good Netflix documentary series lately, narrated by Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones / Tyrion fame, called How To Become A Tyrant.  Plenty of stuff on N.K.

I am wondering what game mechanical system would actually embody differences between atheism and religion.  It should probably be its own axis in a SE table.  Perhaps called "Beliefs" ?  It could get a little redundant, as everything could actually be a belief.  Anthropologists for instance talk about "belief systems", as a broader term than just religions.