Changes to the Social Engineering models

[vonbach]

In the stock binary, that is true.  However I solved that problem by making Clean Reactors available from the beginning of the game. 

The problem is that makes support almost meaningless. I kept the idea of using clean formers and clean syth sentinels.
The computer churns them out like popcorn.

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.

The problem  is in base game mind worms aren't that good. They're ok and I  buffed them with an extra point of movement.
But aside from giving you free units planet doesn't do a lot. Also mindworms are easily countered by decent morale.

[bvanevery]

SUPPORT is already meaningless by late midgame in the stock binary.  There are just generations of SMAC players who have been psychologically conditioned to see Clean Reactors as a reward.  So when the status of it being a reward is taken away, they make a lot of assumptions about the mathematical validity, based on their previous conditioning.  I know this is true because I've played with the alternative for a year now.

SUPPORT still has meaning in the early game when mineral outputs are low.  It costs 50% more for a Clean Reactor in my mod, and those delays do matter in the early game.  Factions that start with +1 SUPPORT do have an advantage.

Mindworms captured aren't that good.  They tend to be very spread out over the surface of Planet, as a byproduct of popping all the pods and fighting other mindworms.  They do not have the endurance to take over distant enemy territory.  They can certainly harass, but without conventional forces to defend ground, mindworms are the tip of a spear that has no body behind it.

Mindworms manufactured by the player are super duper deadly.  A player generally does this when they're ready to invade something, such as on rails.  They bypass Perimeter Defenses and can take down just about anything that the AI puts on defense.

Mindworms manufactured en masse by the AI, are somewhat annoying and somewhat effective at blunting human player attacks.  The stock AI will churn out lots of them in the late game.  The main problem is the AI doesn't tend to train them with Biology Labs etc.

[Nexii]

I think SUPPORT can remain relevant if dual ability units are delayed a bit. Then it's more of a choice between Clean and something more combat oriented.

PLANET I think is relevant enough. Or can be made more powerful with easy mods like 2 move mindworms or cheaper cost.

PROBE is the hard one to make relevant. Cheaper mind control costs all around might be one idea. I don't have too many other ideas though aside from ridding all the free morale boosts. Cheaper probes would just benefit the defender as much as the probe attacker I'd think. Probes are strong all game but not all that dependent on the morale of the probe team really

[bvanevery]

Cheaper mind control costs all around might be one idea.

Oh God please no.  Overpowered probe teams is the worst thing about the original game, bar nothing.  I've had more rage quits and complete deletions of the game from that, than any other reason.  In my mod, which uses the stock binary, I got it down to a dull roar by doubling the cost of all mind control.  The Data Angels, Cyborgs, and the Hive are my "probe team centric" factions that all get a 25% discount on the doubled cost.  Cyborgs and Hive get +1 PROBE, Data Angels get their traditional +2.

Cyborgs also get Polymorphic Encryption on all units, which oddly enough, I found out won't stop some of my ships from getting bought anyways.  They were cheap ships and I could afford to lose them, but I was a bit surprised that my enemies managed it.  I wonder how much they paid?  They could have blown quite a lot of saved money on it, for all I know.

The Believers don't get any probe bonuses, but they are immune to mind control in my mod.  The AI effect of this is when they do take ground from another AI faction, they tend to hold it.

[vonbach]

PROBE is the hard one to make relevant.

Probe as a stat is pretty irrelevant. There really isn't a way to make it more so.
I'd just discount it and give a real bonus.

I think SUPPORT can remain relevant if dual ability units are delayed a bit.

Support is always going to relevant just because of the AI's behavior.

PLANET I think is relevant enough. Or can be made more powerful with easy mods like 2 move mindworms or cheaper cost.

I wish Planet as a stat gave better bonuses.  Like better forest nutrients or fungus farming coming earlier or something like morale or psych.

[Nexii]

Yea in the base game fungus bonuses come way too late to be of much use. I did play around with FM and Planned both getting negative PLANET (FM being worse), and it kinda worked. That way only Green got good fungus production.

[vonbach]

Heres  a question. What are you trying to do with your social engineering choices?
Are you trying to improv AI performance, make it more realistic or simply change it
to something you like?

[Nexii]

More balanced/realistic I'd say. If the choices aren't as far apart and can't be too disastrous for the AI then that's a bonus.

Probably right in that anything less than +3 PROBE isn't that helpful. I would say MC immunity is pretty big though.

Differentiating Wealth/Knowledge a bit more.

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,  +ECONOMY,   --PLANET
Green,           CentEmp, ++PLANET,  ++RESEARCH, -INDUSTRY
Survival,        None,
Power,           MilAlg,  ++MORALE,   ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Knowledge,       Cyber,   ++RESEARCH, ++EFFIC,   --SUPPORT
Wealth,          IndAuto, ++INDUSTRY, --PROBE,   --MORALE
None,            None,
Cybernetic,      DigSent, ++EFFIC,  ++INDUSTRY, ++SUPPORT, --GROWTH
Eudaimonic,      Eudaim,  ++GROWTH, ++ECONOMY,  ++PLANET,  --MORALE
Thought Control, WillPow, ++POLICE, ++MORALE,   +++PROBE,   --RESEARCH

[vonbach]

Trying something different.
I'm more concerned with definitions than  assigning actual numerical values right now.
So I'm thinking about changing the names to more generic terms.
I'm taking inspiration from Beyond Earth for this.

Authoritarian        Progressive                 Traditionalist

Free Market          Regulated market        Autarky

Might                   Knowledge                  Prosperity

Supremacy           Purity                         Harmony

What does  everyone think? Oh and Merry Christmas everyone.

[bvanevery]

Traditionalist - what if they're traditionally authoritarian?  I mean, that's the usual way it has been in human history.  A despot gets into power and forces their will on everyone else.  Their will is the traditional "do what I say or die."

Supremacy is a repeat of Might.  No difference.

[vonbach]

Traditionalist - what if they're traditionally authoritarian?

No traditionalist conservative society is not a police state. Authoritarian and a traditionalist are not the same things.

Supremacy is a repeat of Might.

No it is not supremacy is society based on technical supremacy like out of beyond earth.
While might is military might.

Purity represents a future society based on purity and the pursuit of excellence

Harmony represents a conformist society where harmony and peace is the goal.
Rather than a 1984 thought control society.

[bvanevery]

Traditionalist - what if they're traditionally authoritarian?

No traditionalist conservative society is not a police state.

That reads like a double negative, in which case they would cancel each other out.  However, perhaps you meant: "No, a traditionalist conservative society is not a police state."

Frankly I beg to differ.  The Roman Catholic Church during the Inquisition, for instance, was very much such.  Most of the time, organized religion has been used to kill people who utter any kind of heresy.  This is how the 'traditions' were maintained, and they were synonymous with Church and State power.  There was historically no separation between Church and State, it was whatever the ruler or rulers wanted everyone to believe as part of their propaganda campaigns.

The formal separation of the two, was an Enlightenment idea.  That didn't remove traditionalism, clearly, but it did start a long process of lessening the authoritarianism of Theocratic systems.

Authoritarian and a traditionalist are not the same things.

Like I said, it depends on what your traditions are about.  On Earth, we don't have any examples of traditional societies that aren't deeply tied to their religious beliefs.  And the large organized societies, have had large organized religions and church power, that was used to stomp on non-believers.  That's just how things have been.

No it is not supremacy is society based on technical supremacy like out of beyond earth.

That may be what you want the plain English word "supremacy" to imply, but you haven't done anything else to make anyone understand that meaning.  Nor is "supremacy" part of the vocabulary of the source material.  Meanwhile, my own personal connotation of "supremacy" comes from the WW III board game by that name.  If 12 mushroom clouds fall on the map, everyone loses.  Has nothing to do with far flung technological advancement, has everything to do with military might.  Arguably, also implies economic might, as resource prospecting and market control is a big part of that game.

"Cybernetic" is far better at getting the idea of a technical far future across.  It additionally implies the melding of man and machine.  I don't know what kind of technological future you're going for.  There are many possible far futures.

Purity represents a future society based on purity and the pursuit of excellence

That by itself doesn't mean anything.  Nazis believed in purity just fine.  The question is what kind of additional world building would you do to inform people what kind of "purity" you're talking about?  For instance, the society could become entirely ascetic.

These new SE choices seem to be screaming for new factions that implement the particular ideological models.  Like which one is the Autarky faction?  It's a weird word, and I don't think I buy that it has anything to do with the Data Angels.  They're closest to an Anarchy faction, although I realize there are various flavors of anarchy.

Harmony represents a conformist society where harmony and peace is the goal.
Rather than a 1984 thought control society.

This one I didn't think needed additional explanation.  I got an image in my head of hippies singing kumbaya and taking classes in underwater basket weaving.

[vonbach]

Sigh. I really don't feel like fighting with you right now.

[bvanevery]

I doubt that I'm alone in thinking that words don't simply have personal meaning.  That's the main feedback, that the job of explaining to the player what any given term means, is not simply "done".  The original game has its various worldbuilding materials in it.  If you go away from those materials, then you have the burden of additional explanation to offer the player.  Otherwise it does not make a lot of sense.

There's a reason I finally landed on Theocratic.  It's because ultimately, no matter what I want anything to mean, the game has dialog talking about God.  End of story.

I chose not to rewrite the scripted dialog, primarily for legal reasons, secondarily in order to restrain project scope.  I worked on my mod for 2.5 years as it was.  You haven't said what your project scope is, to go with these SE changes.  If they were to support entirely new factions with different ideological pitches, that would make some sense.

[Nexii]

I preferred Future SEs that were more about what the human species might evolve into rather than how we might live. As in a lot of ways Cybernetic/Eudaimonic/Thought Control mirror Police State/Democracy/Fundamentalist very heavily...just more extreme

Instead perhaps:
1) Man/Machine - similar to Cybernetic but more intertwined at the nanotech level not just devices
2) Man/Chiron - bioengineered hybrids made of human and Chiron DNA
3) Man/??? - Ubermencsh in the Nietzche sense, human genome edited to remove our flaws

Not sure the best names for these. A fourth could be AI takeover but if that happens humanity is done for, and there's not a lot of lore for that.