Cybernetic Consciousness and early SE choices

[Kirov]

I have a question for all you Aki lovers - do you go Planned or FM for early game?

Personally, with other factions I don't even consider Planned, going FM usually as early as I gather some cash after switching to Wealth. I just can't stand the research lag, and I believe Planned may be killing for non-energy factions like the Spartans. But Aki has +2 Effic already, meaning that under Planned she gets bonus to Growth and Industry in a way for free, compared to others. Still, I'd rather combine that Effic boost of hers with early FM for best energy income.

What do you think?

Other (human) players are Domai, Morgan and Roze.

[Nightgaunt]

I'm far from an expert on this subject, as I've only recently reinstalled the game and am still getting the hang of things.

One thing I used to do with other factions was to build Children's Creches, and switch to Democratic and Planned. If I remember correctly this would give you +6 growth in those bases and trigger a population boom. I mention this because the Cyborgs can't use that particular tactic with their growth penalty, which makes Free Market more attractive to me. You could use Democratic to get to +4 Efficiency with the Cyborgs (you can now set your labs or economy to 100% without penalty), go Market and supercharge either your income or research as you see fit.

But take all that with a grain of salt, I'm still rusty and those tactics might not work the way I remember them. Hopefully someone with a better handle on details can confirm or deny what I just typed.

[Yitzi]

It really depends on whether your style is emphasizing strengths or mitigating weaknesses.  I tend more toward emphasizing strengths, so I'd be more likely to go FM under Aki.  Keep in mind, Planned isn't really "free", even for Aki; not only do you give up the option of FM (or Green, though with Aki that's not something you're going to be wanting to do often), but you also give up your +2 EFFIC.

[JarlWolf]

Personally I always go for Planned economy as I find it's industrial bonuses and such much better. Free Market is too annoying with the policing, making me have to produce more units to police cities. And if drone riots happen then nothing gets done. Add the negative planet bit, I for one am more accustomed to planned.

Typically with Aki Zeta (and many other factions) I go with a Planned, Democratic, and then Knowledge basis. The negatives of all the social policies taken are countered out and you have a system which only gives you benefits. So you have higher growth rate, you also have better research as well.

[Yitzi]

The way I see it, each economic choice corresponds (or should; as I'll note below, there's a flaw here that needs fixing) to one focus; it boosts one focus, is a moderate boost (or nothing) for another, and impedes the third.
FM boosts energy, does nothing for nutrients, and is highly detrimental to minerals, since FM+high mineral production is just begging for trouble.
Planned boosts nutrient effects greatly, has a minor boost for minerals via industry, but is detrimental to energy due to the efficiency penalty.
Green boosts mineral capability greatly (as ecodamage is cut by 1/3), gives a moderate boost to energy, but is detrimental to nutrient effects (via the growth penalty).

That's how it seems it should work...the problem is that the variation in how many minerals you can have before ecodamage becomes a huge problem is really very little compared to the clean minerals that everybody gets no matter what their PLANET rating, leading to a whole host of problems.

[Kirov]

I'm far from an expert on this subject, as I've only recently reinstalled the game and am still getting the hang of things.

One thing I used to do with other factions was to build Children's Creches, and switch to Democratic and Planned. If I remember correctly this would give you +6 growth in those bases and trigger a population boom. I mention this because the Cyborgs can't use that particular tactic with their growth penalty, which makes Free Market more attractive to me. You could use Democratic to get to +4 Efficiency with the Cyborgs (you can now set your labs or economy to 100% without penalty), go Market and supercharge either your income or research as you see fit.

But take all that with a grain of salt, I'm still rusty and those tactics might not work the way I remember them. Hopefully someone with a better handle on details can confirm or deny what I just typed.

You remember them well, it's just for me pop boom happens mid game. When I switch to Planned to pop boom, I want it to take place in most of my bases and sustain it for at least a couple of turns and preferably up to the hab cap. As I forest a lot, it usually means I get to do this when I build tree farms. Maybe I do it too late, I just hate switching to Planned unless I really need to.

And you said it, Aki doesn't even get pop boom so easily. It's gonna be tough to do it with Demo/Planned/CC and GA. Oh well.

[Kirov]

It really depends on whether your style is emphasizing strengths or mitigating weaknesses.  I tend more toward emphasizing strengths, so I'd be more likely to go FM under Aki.  Keep in mind, Planned isn't really "free", even for Aki; not only do you give up the option of FM (or Green, though with Aki that's not something you're going to be wanting to do often), but you also give up your +2 EFFIC.

Well, I always thought that SMAC is about playing your strengths well. Sure you can play Morgan the Conqueror, but he will always suck comparing to Morgan the Builder.

I know that Planned never comes free, it's just with Aki you go down to 0 EFFIC, which is not that bad actually (I mean, most factions have to live with 0 Eff). It's the -2 EFFIC that most factions get under Planned that really kills me. It slows teching so much, especially in the most crucial part when going to IA.

Planned boosts nutrient effects greatly, has a minor boost for minerals via industry, but is detrimental to energy due to the efficiency penalty.
Green boosts mineral capability greatly (as ecodamage is cut by 1/3), gives a moderate boost to energy, but is detrimental to nutrient effects (via the growth penalty).

I must say I never saw SE this way. My own impression was that Planned is designed for early game, FM is designed for midgame robust but peaceful empires, and Green is for late game (at later stages with big enough ICS empire you actually get more cash/labs under Green than FM). However, as FM penalties may be mitigated with some careful tactics, I started to switch to it as early as possible and get a leg up in tech races.

Dunno, somehow the idea that Green boosts minerals doesn't convince me. On paper you're not wrong, it's just when I consider going green I usually focus on specialists anyway. I almost never switch to Green for the reasons of eco-damage.

I don't really complain about FM eco-damage hit and I wouldn't say it's bad for minerals. The clean minerals limit is more or less the same regardless of SE choice, plus you actually want to trigger your first fungal pop, plus you can afford several fungal pops before it starts to be annoying, and any problems of that kind are over once you put tree farms in most bases. Sure I can't work 4 boreholes per base, but I wouldn't want to, actually, preferring to mix in condensers and make specialists. So yeah, occasionally I get a pop, and maybe I need to rehome that crawler on a mine to a less-polluting base every now and then, but all in all, this price is awfully cheap for +2 ECONOMY.

[Kirov]

Personally I always go for Planned economy as I find it's industrial bonuses and such much better. Free Market is too annoying with the policing, making me have to produce more units to police cities. And if drone riots happen then nothing gets done. Add the negative planet bit, I for one am more accustomed to planned.

Typically with Aki Zeta (and many other factions) I go with a Planned, Democratic, and then Knowledge basis. The negatives of all the social policies taken are countered out and you have a system which only gives you benefits. So you have higher growth rate, you also have better research as well.

You actually don't make any police units under FM, that's the beauty of it.

Usually I don't even consider Planned, but this is Aki and she can live with it. I'm just not sure if it's worth it for 1 Growth, 1 Industry and 0 Effic.

The issue here is also other players. I've got Domai and Morgan in the gang. Domai makes me want to switch to Planned, churn out CPs quickly, hit the Effic limit, go to FM and expand some more. In short, I should prepare some industrial base. But there is also Morgan, and if I do as I've just said, he may beat me to IA and get to pick early SPs freely. So I'm thinking maybe FM is a better idea after all. 2 Economy, 2 Research, 2 Efficiency, don't tell me it's not enticing.

Oh, and it's not like I can switch to and fro every several turns, we play with sparse native life and I can't count on killing too many mind worms for easy money.

And it's MY 2113 and Domai is already building an SP!  I don't know much about Domai openings so I don't know if this is a trick to get something more trivial like a facility or a unit or he is honestly already racing to SPs, but it's scary.

Choices, choices and I haven't played Aki for years.

[Yitzi]

I know that Planned never comes free

Well, unless you're Yang.

I must say I never saw SE this way. My own impression was that Planned is designed for early game, FM is designed for midgame robust but peaceful empires, and Green is for late game (at later stages with big enough ICS empire you actually get more cash/labs under Green than FM).

If that were the intended method, then why would they all become available around the same time?

Dunno, somehow the idea that Green boosts minerals doesn't convince me. On paper you're not wrong, it's just when I consider going green I usually focus on specialists anyway. I almost never switch to Green for the reasons of eco-damage.

A large part of that is probably that, as I said, the clean minerals mechanic pretty much eliminates that concept.  Once I finish a rebalancing mod, we'll see if all the options are potentially worthwhile at all stages of the game (if I've done things right, the answer will be "yes", though FM does take a significant hit once you're producing several energy per square anyway).
Also, focusing on specialists when going Green is sort of a waste, as specialists aren't affected by efficiency (and a specialist-heavy strategy will tend to have low mineral production, making eco-damage less of an issue).  If you're going specialists, your best bet is probably Planned, so you can grow your population (and hence specialists) more easily.

I don't really complain about FM eco-damage hit and I wouldn't say it's bad for minerals. The clean minerals limit is more or less the same regardless of SE choice, plus you actually want to trigger your first fungal pop, plus you can afford several fungal pops before it starts to be annoying, and any problems of that kind are over once you put tree farms in most bases.

As I said, what I described is how it seems it should work, but it doesn't due to the clean mineral mechanic, which is one of the worst offenders in terms of the havoc it plays with game balance.

[Kirov]

If that were the intended method, then why would they all become available around the same time?

That doesn't really mean anything, it's always better to have more options at your hands, and the designers sure wanted people to maybe consider early Green to go with mind worm rush. What I said is simply a rule of thumb, you can always find a situation where the opposite is true. Which I think is good.

Also, focusing on specialists when going Green is sort of a waste, as specialists aren't affected by efficiency (and a specialist-heavy strategy will tend to have low mineral production, making eco-damage less of an issue).  If you're going specialists, your best bet is probably Planned, so you can grow your population (and hence specialists) more easily.

Well, you can't switch all your citizens to specialists, somebody must work, many more distant bases can't sustain enough specialists, green can make them more efficient, planned will kill their energy output. Unless I don't want to fight with native life, I consider Green rather late. Efficiency gets simply more important, specialists notwithstanding.

As I said, what I described is how it seems it should work, but it doesn't due to the clean mineral mechanic, which is one of the worst offenders in terms of the havoc it plays with game balance.

As we are on the topic of SE choices, I think the politics and values are clearly imbalanced, for that matter it annoys me way more than the eco-damage mechanics. I remember I paid a lot of attention to Police State, Fundie and Power and I'm fairly sure that their usefulness is quite limited compared to Demo, Wealth or Knowledge. Sure you can imagine their uses, and of course Hive gets PS and so on, but all in all, in most situations I prefer to go to war under Demo/FM/Wealth combo than even consider Fundie (which is still better than PS and Power). I almost never switch them unless in very specific situations. And of course AIs running Fundie or Power suffer severely.

[Yitzi]

That doesn't really mean anything, it's always better to have more options at your hands, and the designers sure wanted people to maybe consider early Green to go with mind worm rush. What I said is simply a rule of thumb, you can always find a situation where the opposite is true. Which I think is good.

That's sort of niche...the fact that PLANET rating impacts on ecodamage suggests that the designers meant that to be a substantial portion of the benefit/detriment of anything that impacts it.

As we are on the topic of SE choices, I think the politics and values are clearly imbalanced, for that matter it annoys me way more than the eco-damage mechanics.

Not really.  Police State is the "safe" option, for stability and security at the cost of advancement, and Fundamentalist is clearly designed for a momentum strategy.  Power is likewise designed for a wartime footing, and is extremely useful for that purpose.

If you go Democratic/Wealth or Democratic/Knowledge, and another guy goes Police State/Power or Fundie/Power, and you get into a war, he will probably beat you unless you've been running the "peaceful" options and him the "warlike" options for long enough to get a substantial tech advantage (and even then, Fundie gives probe bonuses) or just more production capability.  Of course, someone who goes Democratic/Wealth-or-Knowledge most of the time but switches to Police State/Power when they're in a serious war will tend to have the advantage over either.

but all in all, in most situations I prefer to go to war under Demo/FM/Wealth combo

With that combo, you're facing 2 drones per military unit outside your territory, only 1 free unit supported per base, and -2 morale.  And (assuming appropriate balance fixes) you can't produce a substantial amount of decent units without running into ecodamage problems even without support issues.  How do you expect to win a war like that against someone going police state/green/power and producing lots of strong units?

[Kirov]

Power is likewise designed for a wartime footing, and is extremely useful for that purpose.

If you go Democratic/Wealth or Democratic/Knowledge, and another guy goes Police State/Power or Fundie/Power, and you get into a war, he will probably beat you unless you've been running the "peaceful" options and him the "warlike" options for long enough to get a substantial tech advantage (and even then, Fundie gives probe bonuses) or just more production capability.

In my experience, in most wars you can’t win with the units you brought for the first wave. Some of them will get destroyed or damaged, some will be necessary to secure the perimeter. It means that in a regular war you need to constantly pump out and send out reinforcements. And in such a case, I can always take on a player of my competence level, comparable empire and tech parity if he runs Fundie/Planned(or Green)/Power and I stay Demo/FM/Wealth.

I remember I spent a great deal of time on the SE screen, testing various SE and sliders in different situations and for different factions. I researched and discussed it thoroughly, and of course to some extent it’s a matter of opinion, but I’m quite convinced that in a war which is any longer than 2-3 turns (and in shorter wars SE doesn’t matter anyway), warmonger settings (Power especially) are way less useful than they appear. I don’t remember all the rationale I found out, so here’s just a handful of reasons.

With that combo, you're facing 2 drones per military unit outside your territory, only 1 free unit supported per base, and -2 morale. 

Let’s get one thing out of the way, Yitzi. You can’t really embark a quest to improve the game balance if you don’t know the ins and outs of the game mechanics and how various tactics are used, abused, circumvented and mitigated by real players in real games.

As a matter of fact, running Demo/FM/Wealth gives you no problems with drones (actually, it gives Golden Ages every now and then), no problems with support and zero morale. All you have to do is set aside one base and either not let it grow (i.e. make the first worker a doctor) or build a Punishment Sphere. Then you can throw in several crawlers for mineral crawling, put them on a borehole, mine/rocky and 2 forests. Other bases make units (usually air) which you rehome to that poor base. Suddenly you can field a sizable army without any drone or support penalty for other bases.

Morale you say. You know that Children Creche is bugged and that it gives bonuses for factions with low MORALE SE? If under -2 MORALE you rehome a unit to a Creche base, this unit gets +1 morale, from very green to green (this doesn't work for +0 MORALE settings). Which effectively cancels the -2 MORALE from Wealth, because everyone starts with green units. You probably have Creches in most your bases, but you don’t have to for war purposes, it’s enough if you put a Creche in that one single base with Punishment Sphere.

Below are other reasons for not running warmonger settings, and here I compare them with their alternatives, not with the vanilla setting. For example, going from Wealth to Power gives you +12,5% morale boost (+25% on defence) traded for ~28% Industry hit (going from 1,1 Industry to 0,8 Industry)

- At war, you still need to get non-combat things going – you still build supply crawlers, you may want to build an SP, you want to build recreation commons in your conquered bases. First and foremost, for a successful war you need a lot of probe teams. All of this at substantial Industry hit.

- Of the combat units you build, some of them don’t need high morale at all. This includes SAM units (it’s funny how Green <2>-1-10 SAM smashes an Elite 8-1-10 Chopper, isn’t it?). This also includes scouting units, drop pod units, probably artillery, etc. Again, severe Industry penalty.

- But of course, some of your ground assault units could use a morale upgrade. Just visit your local Monolith to get one morale boost and cancel out the Fundie morale bonus.

- Morale disparity is also easy to make up for because of upgrade chances. After 2 battles, a Green unit will be Disciplined for 100% and Hardened for 50%, while a Commando unit has only 36% for the Elite upgrade.

- PROBE setting doesn’t actually give you any special bonuses for probing, Fundie only gives you +2 Probe team morale, which can be easily achieved by finding a nearby AI who says that crushing you is nothing personal, and then probe rape it for money. It’s a easy way to raise your probe morale and you can even earn like 3 EC in the process. But if you don’t want to be bothered, just build Covert Ops.

- What is really important in + 2 PROBE setting is that it doubles the cost of mind control of bases and units. In fact, it’s crucial and it may actually save the Fundie guy’s life, because the FM/Wealth guy could sure as hell buy a lot. One minor thing: in the mind control formula, the energy reserves of the victim affect the price, so the rich guy always has an advantage over the poor guy.

And we could talk at lengths about what the Demo/FM/Wealth guy can do with all his energy, so let’s just assume he switches the slider to 80% cash and rushbuys units every turn.

Long story short, the glorious bonuses of Fundie/Power may be mitigated by one base with Punishment Sphere and Children Creche in it, and maybe another one with Covert Ops, plus a handful of such fancy and high-brow tricks like using a monolith or probing AI. And I get to keep +3 ECONOMY, +2 EFFICIENCY, +1 INDUSTRY and 0 RESEARCH.

Now, I understand that PS, Fundie and Power have some uses. Some factions just can’t run Demo/FM/Wealth. Others, like Morgan, are quite flexible (he may run Fundie/Green/Wealth to some advantage). You may find situations where me myself would recommend switching to Fundie. It’s just their uses are way more limited, way more specific than those of Demo/FM/Wealth. I don’t believe in a general rule “I go to war so I switch to Power” and I definitely can't get scared of a Fundie/Power guy of my level.

[Yitzi]

In my experience, in most wars you can’t win with the units you brought for the first wave. Some of them will get destroyed or damaged, some will be necessary to secure the perimeter. It means that in a regular war you need to constantly pump out and send out reinforcements.

Indeed.  Not sure how that's relevant.

And in such a case, I can always take on a player of my competence level, comparable empire and tech parity if he runs Fundie/Planned(or Green)/Power and I stay Demo/FM/Wealth.

How?  Demo/FM/Wealth is great for producing energy, but energy isn't the same as military units, and in fact units are very expensive to hurry (and with the ecodamage fix, your mineral production under FM is roughly half his under Planned, or even less if he goes Green).  The only thing I can think of is to build cheap units and then upgrade them, which is a large part of why upgrade costs are #2 on my list of balance mods.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, Yitzi. You can’t really embark a quest to improve the game balance if you don’t know the ins and outs of the game mechanics and how various tactics are used, abused, circumvented and mitigated by real players in real games.

I'm fairly aware with the detailed game mechanics and how they are abused, hence my searching for balance fixes to stop that.

As a matter of fact, running Demo/FM/Wealth gives you no problems with drones (actually, it gives Golden Ages every now and then), no problems with support and zero morale. All you have to do is set aside one base and either not let it grow (i.e. make the first worker a doctor) or build a Punishment Sphere. Then you can throw in several crawlers for mineral crawling, put them on a borehole, mine/rocky and 2 forests. Other bases make units (usually air) which you rehome to that poor base. Suddenly you can field a sizable army without any drone or support penalty for other bases.

With the ecodamage fix I'm planning, that's 6+4+4=14 minerals (which is itself only a small to midsized army later in the game); running Free market and assuming transcend/medium native life, that translates to ecodamage equal to 1/5 your techs known (or 1/10 with a centauri preserve), which can be a bit much for stuff that actually doesn't go to boosting your production any.

And of course if the enemy can identify that one base and take it, you just lost your whole army.

Also, the way I'm planning it, crawlers will be expensive (I'm thinking 4 times the current cost for the standard model, more for extra stuff.)

Morale you say. You know that Children Creche is bugged and that it gives bonuses for factions with low MORALE SE?

Isn't that only when they're actually in the base square (i.e. defending or counterattacking from that base)?  If not, that bug definitely needs fixing.

Below are other reasons for not running warmonger settings, and here I compare them with their alternatives, not with the vanilla setting. For example, going from Wealth to Power gives you +12,5% morale boost (+25% on defence) traded for ~28% Industry hit (going from 1,1 Industry to 0,8 Industry)

1. This really plays into the "effects of negative morale" issue, which was discussed above.
2. Your numbers are off.  You're not going from 1.1 production to 0.8 production, you're going from 0.9 cost to 1.2 cost, which is only a 25% hit. 
3. Better units are often worth more than more units, because the best unit in the stack defends, so your expensive unit that was heavily damaged in the battle (which it won due to superior morale) won't defend again and can be sent to the back lines (or a base with a command center) to heal.
4. More importantly, you also get +2 support, which lets you field a larger army without cutting into your production (since your "throwaway base" idea helps with drones but you still need minerals for support.)

- At war, you still need to get non-combat things going – you still build supply crawlers, you may want to build an SP, you want to build recreation commons in your conquered bases.

If during a war one person spends 120 apiece on several crawlers and builds hundreds-of-cost SPs, and the other builds just military units and facilities, who do you think is going to win the war?

First and foremost, for a successful war you need a lot of probe teams.

How does that work?  Sure, you'll want some to take out perimeter defenses and so on, but unless you're Roze, using them as a major part of your assault force gets very expensive and is easily countered.  So yes, if you're using a lot of probe teams, Democratic/FM/Wealth is a good strategy, but with an ecodamage fix, that strategy will still lose to a more conventional "build lots of strong units and roll over the enemy" strategy.

- Of the combat units you build, some of them don’t need high morale at all. This includes SAM units (it’s funny how Green <2>-1-10 SAM smashes an Elite 8-1-10 Chopper, isn’t it?).

Yes, SAM/interceptors don't need much morale, but they're sort of a niche method since (with appropriate fixes) air power isn't what you want as the backbone of your army anyway.

This also includes scouting units

Cheap no matter who builds them.

drop pod units

Also niche.

probably artillery

Not at all.  In an artillery duel, morale can easily be the deciding factor.

Again, severe Industry penalty.

A 16% penalty (5-to-6 ratio) is not that severe.

- But of course, some of your ground assault units could use a morale upgrade. Just visit your local Monolith to get one morale boost and cancel out the Fundie morale bonus.

You do know that monoliths stack with Fundie/Power morale upgrade, don't you?  Going Fundie/Power with a command center, and then grabbing a monolith on top of that, means that your units are elite (and +1 movement is very useful) before they even reach the front line.

- Morale disparity is also easy to make up for because of upgrade chances. After 2 battles, a Green unit will be Disciplined for 100% and Hardened for 50%, while a Commando unit has only 36% for the Elite upgrade.

In an evenly matched war, that Green unit will need to be really lucky to win two battles.

- PROBE setting doesn’t actually give you any special bonuses for probing, Fundie only gives you +2 Probe team morale, which can be easily achieved by finding a nearby AI who says that crushing you is nothing personal, and then probe rape it for money.

This assumes you're playing with AIs (a 7-player game is really the ideal way to play, if you can get 7 people to commit), and you can easily lose probe teams that way.

But if you don’t want to be bothered, just build Covert Ops.

Again, it stacks, so the Fundie player can also get Covert Ops for even more morale.

What is really important in + 2 PROBE setting is that it doubles the cost of mind control of bases and units. In fact, it’s crucial and it may actually save the Fundie guy’s life, because the FM/Wealth guy could sure as hell buy a lot. One minor thing: in the mind control formula, the energy reserves of the victim affect the price, so the rich guy always has an advantage over the poor guy.

Isn't it really difficult to mind control a properly defended base anyway, both because of the military units prowling around (which can kill the probe team) and because the base could itself have probe teams there?  Even at -2 Industry, the Power faction can build more 1-move probe teams than the FM/Wealth player can build 2-move probe teams.

And we could talk at lengths about what the Demo/FM/Wealth guy can do with all his energy, so let’s just assume he switches the slider to 80% cash and rushbuys units every turn.

Even a 20-mineral unit costs 25 energy and 10 minerals if you rushbuy from 10 minerals (rushbuying from less is far more expensive); air units and shock troops can easily become prohibitively expensive to rushbuy.  And at 10 minerals per base, running FM on transcend, you're (with the ecodamage fix) facing something like 2% ecodamage per base, more if you don't spend on centauri preserves (annoying, though not a real threat).  Meanwhile, the other guy is going Green and using a genejack factory and 2-3 boreholes per base to build a 6/3/1 or an air unit (with some native life thrown in for good measure) at each major base every turn at the same ecodamage.

So it seems that your concerns are legitimate with the game as it is now (where the only way to build a 40-mineral unit every turn without major ecodamage problems is by rushbuying, and a dedicated base can produce up to 16 minerals for support with no ecodamage), but an ecodamage fix will make mineral focus far more effective in comparison to energy focus, giving it a clear advantage for unit building.  Throw in a minor air power nerf, and Democratic/FM/Wealth becomes quite a bit harder to make war under.

[Kirov]

Well, what I can say, of course if you’re gonna change so many rules, this will affect the entire gameplay and render my descriptions invalid. What I was trying to approximate was how things really are in my experience.

I'm fairly aware with the detailed game mechanics and how they are abused, hence my searching for balance fixes to stop that.

I think you're doing ok, but maybe there's room for improvement here. For starters, Children Creches do provide permanent morale bonus, in addition to that base-tile thingy you mentioned:

http://www.civgaming.net/smac/acad_morale.shtml

Secondly, I must say I find it puzzling that you have such a hard time taking it from veteran players that things in SMAX are done the way they are actually done. Choppers indeed are (too) powerful and AAA sucks as a counter. This is no esoteric stuff, in fact any average player could tell you that. But when this was coming from a very experienced player like Earthmichael, you appeared to remain somewhat skeptical.

Drop pod units are everything but niche. As a matter of fact, in the games I played this was the most popular special ability put in midgame ground units. You didn't really believe me that "chop&drop" is such a powerful strategy, did you?

[Yitzi]

Well, what I can say, of course if you’re gonna change so many rules, this will affect the entire gameplay and render my descriptions invalid. What I was trying to approximate was how things really are in my experience.

Yes, this is true.  The ecodamage mechanic affects the balance of energy focus as opposed to mineral focus, which affects the usage of probe teams and the effectiveness of other social engineering effects as well.  There's no question that a fix is needed, the question is merely which fixes are needed.

I think you're doing ok, but maybe there's room for improvement here. For starters, Children Creches do provide permanent morale bonus, in addition to that base-tile thingy you mentioned:

http://www.civgaming.net/smac/acad_morale.shtml

I think I'll want to check that, see what's going on...

Secondly, I must say I find it puzzling that you have such a hard time taking it from veteran players that things in SMAX are done the way they are actually done.

I'm aware that they're done in a certain way; what I have a hard time with is understanding why that's effective, and with claims that it would remain effective after certain changes.

Choppers indeed are (too) powerful and AAA sucks as a counter. This is no esoteric stuff, in fact any average player could tell you that. But when this was coming from a very experienced player like Earthmichael, you appeared to remain somewhat skeptical.

Because Earthmichael is very experienced playing in games where going for AAA will mean he'll get to D:AP as soon as (or even before) you get AAA, and then he can use needlejets for ZoC and stacking and terraforming destruction to beat you.  If you don't need D:AP to counter D:AP (my proposed fix), then AAA as a counter to air power becomes a lot more appealing.
Experience can tell what happens, not what will happen after a given modification.  For that, you need theory.

Drop pod units are everything but niche. As a matter of fact, in the games I played this was the most popular special ability put in midgame ground units. You didn't really believe me that "chop&drop" is such a powerful strategy, did you?

Oh, it's powerful as long as getting AAA prevents getting Air Superiority in time to save you from needlejets.  With AAA cheaper to tech and cheaper to add to defensive units, chop&drop will fall dramatically in effectiveness.