Changes to the Social Engineering models

[Nexii]

Been trying out Thinker AI which is formidable.

A few minor changes I made:
Democracy penalty reduced to -2 POLICE
Fundamentalism now gives 2 GROWTH but no longer gives EFFIC
Knowledge penalty increased to -2 POLICE

Makes Fundamentalism a second option for booming. Thinking about giving Police State 1-2 SUPPORT at the cost of 1-2 EFFIC. I don't want it to be too similar to Fundamentalism though, and EFFIC is much like losing research. So perhaps going back to giving PS -2 GROWTH. My worry was it might put some factions to -3, though I suppose Creches are a thing.

[Nexii]

Been away awhile. Kind of going back to square one on the SE modding.

Some design points:
- I tried to represent every penalty. POLICE and MORALE are represented twice as they have more interesting and less punishing negative breakpoints.
- In many places, keeping with original bonuses and penalties. Generally keeping to +2/+2/-2, except for the very powerful SE effects and Future Societies.
- Green changed a lot, more research bonus due to understanding/learning from Planet. INDUSTRY to me felt more fitting of a downside than GROWTH, sustainable materials means less overall production.
- Similarly Power gets negative GROWTH. A focus on military over well-being, where only citizens can typically raise children.
- Knowledge gets POLICE penalty due to a more open society.
- Cybernetic changed to be more industrial for benefits giving SUPPORT and INDUSTRY. Penalty to PROBE due to vulnerability of AI automation and cultural erosion.
- Eudaimonic gets PLANET instead of INDUSTRY. I see this more in line with a harmonic utopia than producing more things.
- Thought Control penalty is RESEARCH. As in 1984 progress stagnates. SUPPORT penalty seemed odd to me as such societies typically had large militaries.

Frontier,        None,
Police State,    DocLoy,  ++POLICE, ++SUPPORT, -EFFIC
Democratic,      EthCalc, ++EFFIC,  ++GROWTH,  --SUPPORT
Fundamentalist,  Brain,   ++MORALE, ++PROBE,   --RESEARCH
Simple,          None,
Free Market,     IndEcon, ++ECONOMY, ---PLANET, ---POLICE
Planned,         PlaNets, ++GROWTH,  +INDUSTRY, --ECONOMY
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++RESEARCH,  -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC,   --POLICE
Wealth,          IndAuto, +INDUSTRY,  +ECONOMY,  --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++EFFIC,  ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, ---PROBE
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY,  ++PLANET,  --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE,   ++PROBE,   ---RESEARCH

[vonbach]

Interesting.

The change to Green is something new and not bad at all. I might steal this myself.

Fundamentalist seems weak especially for --2 research. If it were me I'd switch the growth to Fundamentalist and probe to Democratic.

Power seems to have harsh penalties.

Knowledge seems to be a must pick. Especially with Police State and Green.

The future societies seem to be pretty balanced.  Except the penalties for Cybernetic seem a bit light and Thought control a little too harsh.

[bvanevery]

Probe bonuses as a Democratic thing doesn't make any sense at all.  The Russians are hacking the USA en masse right now.  What evidence do you have that the USA is doing a far bigger and better job hacking the Russians?

Probe belongs with Police State, so that's where I put it.

[vonbach]

The Russians are hacking the USA en masse right now.

Lol. Turn of MSNBC.

What evidence do you have that the USA is doing a far bigger and better job hacking the Russians?

The CIA has been rigging elections for years. They just did it here.

Probe bonuses as a Democratic thing doesn't make any sense at all.

Probe bonuses don't make sense at all frankly because its a worthless bonus.
Theres pretty much no benefit to having it all. You just kill the probe teams.

[bvanevery]

The CIA has been rigging elections for years. They just did it here.

You seriously believe all the "election, muhhaa, rigged" stuff?  Well let's be frank.  All the courts dismissed the [Sleezebag] campaign's claims as totally lacking evidence.  The problem with conspiracy theories is you keep on having to posit larger and larger number of people that are "in on it", to the point of reaching absurdity.  So, you'd have us believe that our entire court system is part of the rigging too.

Here is why [Sleezebag] makes the claims he does.  He's a narcissist, he can't handle losing, it's the worst thing that can happen to a narcissist.  He also makes money when people contribute to his "rigged defense fund".  He's gonna milk this schtick as many years as he can.

Probe bonuses don't make sense at all frankly because its a worthless bonus.
Theres pretty much no benefit to having it all. You just kill the probe teams.

Armored probe teams make the bonuses a bit more meaningful.  In fact it can rise to the level of an exploit, in the case of invulnerable probe ships that the poor stupid AI attempts to attack.

Higher PROBE also makes it cost more money to mind control stuff.  That does matter in practice.  If you can get it up to +3, then you're immune to mind control.

It's not a great bonus, but it's not a worthless bonus either.

[Buster's Uncle]

In this matter, I'm going to insist on topic discipline.  Please don't feed.

[vonbach]

Of course I have to be the bad guy.

[BU Admin]

Take responsibility for your own actions.  24 hours.

[Nexii]

Yea I've had PROBE with PS. IMO it is a bit more fitting there, communism had the best spies in Civ2 which is approximated by Police State

But then Fundamentalism and Power have identical benefits if PROBE is swapped with SUPPORT

Fundamentalism could get 2 GROWTH 2 SUPPORT, and Democracy 2 EFFIC 2 MORALE. Is MORALE fitting for Democracy though? Citizenry fights harder when they feel they have a say? I could maybe see it a volunteer army being stronger than a conscripted one.

I do agree -3 RESEARCH a bit steep for TC. And Cybernetic gets off kinda light for penalty. Probably speaks more to PROBE needing to be more influential. I think both PROBE and MORALE are more important when defense is boosted up a bit (cheaper armor cost, stronger ECM, stronger AAA). That way probing a base matters and there are more close battles as well.

[vonbach]

You can either go for realism or gameplay. You'll pretty much have to pick one.

Probe is pretty much a non stat as far as I'm concerned.
I've always been  of the opinion that Fundamentalist should have growth bonuses.

I've put Probe with PS and Put the Support with planned before. The problem is it leaves
PS weak. I usually just dump Probe in thought control.

[Nexii]

Yea PS without SUPPORT just isn't very good. Those extra police sentinels need it.

I think PROBE fits Fundamentalist as well. It represents a sort of cultural resilience to brainwashing / propaganda / mind control. More than how it's represented (probe teams).


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

[bvanevery]

Yea PS without SUPPORT just isn't very good. Those extra police sentinels need it.

SUPPORT is only relevant in the early part of the game, before minerals are abundant from factories and tree farms.  I don't give any SUPPORT with my PS.  However I do have Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game, at extra cost.  SUPPORT is still an advantage at the beginning because you can make units faster.  I also gave the Hive +1 POLICE, making it very easy for them to get +3 POLICE with PS.  Units doing 2x police duty is quite valuable and definitely worth paying SUPPORT for.  Other factions can get the same effect by completing the Ascetic Virtues.

[vonbach]

The one thing that helps the AI out more than anything else is handing out support.

Minus two research for ++Growth is just too weak for fund.
With morale and Effic Democracy is almost an auto pick.
Democracy should get a bonus to economy or something.

Planet is another bonus I always found weak unless your trying to fungus farm
or use mindworms.

One idea Ive toyed with is  removing growth from planned and giving it to Free Market.
The idea being to give unfettered growth at the cost of instability.
Planned would get reduced penalties probably just minus effic and a bonus to economy.

[bvanevery]

The one thing that helps the AI out more than anything else is handing out support.

In the stock binary, that is true.  However I solved that problem by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game.  My stock AI doesn't run itself out of SUPPORT so easily because it builds things like Clean Synth Sentinels over and over again.

A Thinker or Will To Power code base has the option of dealing with AI SUPPORT problems in other ways, but I don't know what's actually been done.

Planet is another bonus I always found weak unless your trying to fungus farm
or use mindworms.

I find that a mere +1 PLANET will allow me to capture massive numbers of mindworms and isles, pop massive numbers of supply pods, and bring back dozens of Artifacts.  It's so effective as to almost rise to the level of an exploit.