Changes to the Social Engineering models

[vonbach]

I change Mixed to Autarky. Basically its an economy thats self reliant. Not so much good for trading but good for growing your empire.
Its a good alternate path to capitalism or communism.

[Nexii]

I wonder if the EFFIC bonuses and PLANET penalties are in the right place. Might also be a question of which types of development are worst on PLANET.

[vonbach]

One thing I have noticed is making money is virtually impossible without running Free Market. There are no real alternatives.
Maybe its the way I  terraform but I usually don't have this much trouble.

I wonder if the EFFIC bonuses and PLANET penalties are in the right place. Might also be a question of which types of development are worst on PLANET.

The big question is do you want to go for realism or gameplay?

[Nexii]

Going for balanced gameplay that makes sense. Otherwise Democracy, Free Market would be overpowered (like the stock game, haha). I want most combinations to be viable. So I think the PLANET penalties kind of work for that.

What do you normally run for economics? I feel like Planned and Green are not that good in the base set. Planned is -2 EFFIC, Green cripples GROWTH for +2 EFFIC which doesn't even come close to +2 ECON. Planned might be situationally used for booms and that's about it.

I think that a lot of it is that forests are low energy, 1 raw energy per square isn't much. A drone costs 2 energy (modded) just to control with PSYCH. And most psych facilities aren't a lot better. The weakness of farm/solar on land was painfully obvious when I made boreholes & hybrid forest take more tech. So I buffed farm/solar a bit and nerfed forests a bit, to make it more of a decision. Dry areas get forests, rainy areas get farm/solar. Rocky areas get mines to crawl, although crawling nutrients is usually better.

Right now I've modded the following:
IndAuto - Echelon, Crawlers, unlocks both energy and minerals (to go with the borehole quote, but you can't build them... implies using borehole cluster I guess)
EcoEng - Condensor (might put this a little earlier, I did nerf them to be +1N instead of +50%N). But EcoEng does need something.
EnvEcon - Tree Farm, Aquafarm and Soil Enrichers, Weather Paradigm (+1N for all terrain types)
EcoEng2 - Hybrid Forest, Trunkline, Thermocline, Boreholes, Raise/Lower (only now do you get super high energy)

Forests increased to 8 turns
Enrichers reduced to 4 turns
Mines reduced to 4 turns
Echelons reduced to 8 turns

An earlier unlock makes sea tidals very good too, consider those. Even without unlock 2/0/2 is okay.

[lolada]

Just some food for thought - i was thinking about SE balance and came to conclusion  its pointless to mess a lot unless you take all SE choices in combination with each other. So commenting on single choice.. like Planned or Fundamentalism doesn't matter much unless you consider other values they are going to be picked with.

So I'll just spam some thoughts if anyone modding find them interesting:

1. EFFICIENCY

Police State - it has -2 Efficiency - this is really no go unless at very beginning...
Planned - also -2 Efficiency same issue..

Now Yang ignore these bonuses which usually makes him the best AI from what i can observe. I don't think any choices should give -2 EFF, since it ruins AI. Player can do around it. Then it would go same to limit +EFF. Having lots of +EFF is fun, -EFF is anti-fun for player.. for AI it ruins them. So generally going more + less - is better for gameplay.
This -2 malus also makes you not ever want to pick these choices unless you can balance it with some +EFF source. Efficiency is really important for Drone handling in big factions, i don't want reduced EFF just for that.

GROWTH is similar, but at least its capped with drones. I see most modders limit choices to +1 and it seems fine. Pop booming looks OP to me.

2. RESEARCH

Fundamentalism - why does it need to have -2 Research for its benefits.. AI would do much better with -1. As player i do pick it anyway because Research is really not that important once you have Probe Teams. But before that it really shuts off any AI that picks it.

Knowledge - Here you have really op choice as it has +RESEARCH and + EFF in single pick.. and penalty is - Probe eghm. If anything will have +2 Res +1 Eff it should have -2 IND.. i don't think -2 ECO is that bad.

3. (minus) SUPPORT
Democracy: -2 SUPPORT - i don't want this picked until i am close to finishing expansion on main continent. Primarily due to loss of minerals in new bases. Later its like obvious best choice. AI also seems dumb enough to build ton of units and lose all its minerals. So i would go light with any - SUPPORT.

4. INDUSTRY - its such OP stat

That for example make Wealth great choice regardless of ECO bonus. Power is then that much worse and bad choice. -2 industry is such appalling penalty that it shouldn't be anywhere in SE table. One could maybe place -1 IND in green and -1 in Power so if you want to stack -industry have it that way ^^. Same goes for + IND.. +1 should be likely max.. unless its balanced with something heavy like -2 EFF but thats vicious balance circle

ECONOMY - on the other hand is also great + stat but not that bad - stat; and Wealth, Free market are much better balanced in vanilla than some other choices.

5. POLICE.. I'd maybe want to see removed those pacifist drones completely from game. It also mostly ruins AI. Free Market could have its -5 just to remove use of police out of the picture

6. PLANET need extra modding or is two weak stat in general.. modding to PSI combat or + to native lifecycle.. these are heavy changes

7. Morale - too abundant imo .. it would be interesting to mod Command Centers to +1.. other sources as well to make SE choices more important. Then some SE choices could go to +2, it would make them interesting to pick..

8. Probe - also doesn't matter that much because probe gets morale from techs - removing that makes +PROBE much more interesting. Minus probe is kind of broken, -25% and -50% mind-probe cost is broken.. those numbers are way too large and bases cheap to steal. Especially when you get all the units with them as well. But probe teams are op in general.

On future society choices: they are broken as hell and come way too late in vanilla. Having them way earlier looks much better. And balanced in that sense to avoid breaking the game instantly. That was the point i presume in vanilla - they are meant to be op.. but for longer gameplay balance matters more and having the chance to acutally play with these choices.. there's no point getting them when game is already won.

Hope you find it useful -_-.

[vonbach]

1. EFFICIENCY

Police State - it has -2 Efficiency - this is really no go unless at very beginning...
Planned - also -2 Efficiency same issue..

Police state penalties were always too severe for what you get.

2. RESEARCH

Fundamentalism - why does it need to have -2 Research for its benefits.. AI would do much better with -1. As player i do pick it anyway because Research is really not that important once you have Probe Teams. But before that it really shuts off any AI that picks it.

Agreed.

3. (minus) SUPPORT
Democracy: -2 SUPPORT - i don't want this picked until i am close to finishing expansion on main continent. Primarily due to loss of minerals in new bases. Later its like obvious best choice. AI also seems dumb enough to build ton of units and lose all its minerals. So i would go light with any - SUPPORT.

Agreed. Thats one reason I like to limit or remove penalties entirely.

4. INDUSTRY - its such OP stat

Yes it is.

ECONOMY - on the other hand is also great + stat but not that bad - stat; and Wealth, Free market are much better balanced in vanilla than some other choices.

Yes wealth is OP it always was. One thing I have noticed is if your playing  an economy heavy faction the AI sometimes will simply refuse to trade with you.

6. PLANET need extra modding or is two weak stat in general.. modding to PSI combat or + to native lifecycle.. these are heavy changes

7. Morale - too abundant imo .. it would be interesting to mod Command Centers to +1.. other sources as well to make SE choices more important. Then some SE choices could go to +2, it would make them interesting to pick..

8. Probe - also doesn't matter that much because probe gets morale from techs - removing that makes +PROBE much more interesting. Minus probe is kind of broken, -25% and -50% mind-probe cost is broken.. those numbers are way too large and bases cheap to steal. Especially when you get all the units with them as well. But probe teams are op in general.

These choices really aren't that important and never were. Morale is nice but isn't necessary. Planet is mostly nice if you want to spam worms or keep them off your formers and probe is almost useless.

On future society choices: they are broken as hell and come way too late in vanilla. Having them way earlier looks much better.

I have them come much earlier myself just because I want to see them earlier. I want to see future societies in a future game.

What do you normally run for economics? I feel like Planned and Green are not that good in the base set. Planned is -2 EFFIC, Green cripples GROWTH for +2 EFFIC which doesn't even come close to +2 ECON. Planned might be situationally used for booms and that's about it.

I think that a lot of it is that forests are low energy, 1 raw energy per square isn't much. A drone costs 2 energy (modded) just to control with PSYCH. And most psych facilities aren't a lot better. The weakness of farm/solar on land was painfully obvious when I made boreholes & hybrid forest take more tech. So I buffed farm/solar a bit and nerfed forests a bit, to make it more of a decision. Dry areas get forests, rainy areas get farm/solar. Rocky areas get mines to crawl, although crawling nutrients is usually better.

I usually run Green if I have the choice. I hate planned and never run it if I have a choice.
I think Its probably my terraforming strategy. I like my forest spam. Thats probably the issue.

[Nexii]

Energy does become very powerful if you can get commerce going. I've seen games where Morgan had like +26 energy in one base from a single trade partner. My modded set does assume a few things. Morale is a bit better due to armor costing much less (more close battles), Planet is a bit better with faster moving native life, and probe is a bit better with the free morale boosts removed. I wanted all SEs to be relevant, it's the only way to make three compelling choices at each tier.

Yea the bottom range for EFFIC should have been -1. That equates to Anarchy in Civilization 2. I think they just kind of messed up on that. Though I suppose allowing it to go a bit lower is nice for tiny/small maps.

Anyways resummarizing what I've been trying out.

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,    None
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --SUPPORT, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, -PLANET
Mixed,           IndAuto, ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --PLANET
Survival,        None,
Power,           AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +PROBE, -POLICE
Green,           CentEmp, +++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
None,            None,
AI Controlled,   DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Utopian,         Eudaim,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Orwellian,       WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

[vonbach]

I went back and played with the editor a bit. The Forests made less of a difference than you'd think.

[Nexii]

Energy can be pretty tough until the advanced techs. I judge it more on research rate than economy. Prior to advanced terraforming I'm getting 4 turn techs in Planned or 3 turn techs in Free Market. Kind of a strange game I was isolated and all the AIs went for the same techs, so not much trading.

[vonbach]

Heres a question do you think Green should replace Knowledge instead of wealth?

[Nexii]

It could, I mean all of the four game objectives could be values (conquer=power, knowledge=discover, explore=green, build=wealth) if you think about it. But then the research bonuses of Knowledge would have to be put elsewhere.

Wealth was sort of just the easiest to remove because there's already an abundance of IND. And Build sort of has its whole entire tier so to speak in Economics. Letting Free Drones get +5 IND so early would be a bit much. So then Planned would have to go back to other benefits. I also had the issue with it that it was very good for +1 ECON factions, could run Wealth and avoid Free Market's downsides.
 

[vonbach]

It could, I mean all of the four game objectives could be values (conquer=power, knowledge=discover, explore=green, build=wealth) if you think about it. But then the research bonuses of Knowledge would have to be put elsewhere.

Wealth was sort of just the easiest to remove because there's already an abundance of IND. And Build sort of has its whole entire tier so to speak in Economics. Letting Free Drones get +5 IND so early would be a bit much. So then Planned would have to go back to other benefits. I also had the issue with it that it was very good for +1 ECON factions, could run Wealth and avoid Free Market's downsides.
 

I usually remove the Ind bonuses until the future societies. Planned gets something else and wealth gets something else like growth or more effic.
I just think it fits better replacing knowledge if your going to replace it at all.  Green economics can work but you have to convince the AI to take it.
I was trying something on my own for a "balanced" economic tree
Free Market ++ECONOMY ++EFFIC --POLICE --PLANET
Planned +ECONOMY +SUPPORT -TALENT maybe something else like like+PROBE or Police or even +talent at the cost of -growth
Autarky/green ++GROWTH ++EFFIC  +planet -econ 
I might get rid of the growth so it looks like this
++effic ++planet +economy -ind?
The idea is to make all the economic systems "ok" at making money but Free Market the clear winner.

[Nexii]

Yea, I have to do some rebalancing around PLANET and ecodamages before more SE tweaks. In the stock game, PLANET doesn't really help you much with ecodamage. The amount of ecodamage per mineral so steep that it barely makes a difference whether you're in Green or Free Market. It's something like 2 ecodamage per mineral (in excess of clean) late game in Green and 16 per mineral in Free Market. Either way you're getting a lot of fungal pops.

+2 ECON is just so strong, but I didn't think -5 POLICE was fitting. I think Free Market does need something steeper, negative PLANET and MORALE perhaps in combination. Make it actually hard to fight native life. Free Market was just the best in all situations really...

[Nexii]

I'm not sure if Free Market really needs EFFIC, it has a lot more inequality if anything. I could see it just outclassing the other 2 with both benefits. The version I have now of Green is sort of in between both of yours. I think generally it would get growth, planet, effic, and/or support. Negatives to ind and/or economy.

Planned I have as granting a bit of control, by POLICE. It is a command economy after all. Power gets PROBE now rather than Knowledge. I suppose PROBE has benefits beyond just tech stealing, it's probably more suitable in Power. Though I go back and forth on it a lot. Knowledge got EFFIC to compensate. Back to Wealth again, more in its root definition of 'well-being' rather than just money and things. As your population is spoiled they require more incentive to fight (-SUPPORT) and become more greedy (-PROBE). Might be a bit of a stretch, I'm not sure. Going for unique penalties that keep Knowledge, Green, Wealth at least pickable by AIs with that Agenda.

Politics, Economics, Values, Future Society
Frontier,        None,    None
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++++EFFIC, +RESEARCH, ---POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, --MORALE, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, ++INDUSTRY, +POLICE, --PLANET 
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET, ++SUPPORT, --ECONOMY
Survival,        None,
Power,           AdapDoc, ++MORALE, +PROBE, -GROWTH
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++GROWTH, -PROBE, -SUPPORT
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ++EFFIC, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++ECONOMY, ++RESEARCH, ++GROWTH, ---POLICE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++PROBE, ++MORALE, ---RESEARCH

[vonbach]

Police State,    Chaos,  ++POLICE, ++PROBE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Democratic,      InfNet,  ++EFFIC, +ECONOMY, --POLICE
Fundamentalist,  Psych,   ++GROWTH, +EFFIC, +MORALE, -RESEARCH
Simple,          None,    None
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ---PLANET
Planned,         PlaNets, +ECONOMY, +SUPPORT, +POLICE, -GROWTH
Green,           DocFlex, +ECONOMY, ++EFFIC, ++PLANET, -SUPPORT
Survival,        None,
Power,           DocLoy, ++MORALE, +POLICE, +SUPPORT, -GROWTH
Knowledge,       Integ,   ++RESEARCH, +EFFIC, -POLICE, --PROBE
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++EFFIC,  +ECONOMY,  --MORALE, --POLICE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      Algor,   ++RESEARCH,  +EFFIC, --POLICE
Eudaimonic,      EnvEcon, ++GROWTH, +ECONOMY, +EFFIC, -PROBE, -MORALE
Thought Control, PlaEcon, ++POLICE, +SUPPORT, ++PROBE, +INDUSTRY, --RESEARCH

This is what I've been messing around with so far in my own game. I might change out the Police State penalties to -research
and the Fundamentalist to --probe.